Herb gardening can be a great amount of fun. Herbs can add interest and flavor to foods as well as provide color, fragrance, and interest to your garden. They are pest resistant and easy to grow. Herbs can be grown indoors in pots or in an outdoor garden.
Start with the herbs you use the most and plant in soil with organic matter added. You want to avoid areas where water stands or runs during the rain and the area should get direct sunlight for six hours a day. You can raise beds to help with drainage and only use a little bit of fertilizer. There are three classifications, annual, biennial, and perennial. You want to plant the following as seeds because they don’t transplant well, anise, borage, caraway, chervil, coriander, dill, and fennel. Herbs that transplant well are mints, oregano, rosemary, tarragon and thyme. After planting you will want to mulch around the plants.
Harvesting herbs should be done frequently as this encourages healthy and fuller plants. You want to harvest herb leaves when plants are well established but before flowering to keep leaf production high. You want to harvest up to three-quarters of the current season’s growth. You want to harvest early in the morning after the dew dries but before the sun gets hot.
The flowers have more intense oil concentration and flavor when harvested after buds appear but before the flowers are open. Flowers for dried crafts should be picked just before the flowers are fully open.
Annuals can be harvested until the 1st frost. Perennials can be clipped until one month before the 1st frost. You want to harvest lavender flowers or in the early summer then shear the plants to half their height to encourage their second flowering in the fall. Herbs grown indoors can be harvested year round.
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