Growing an Herb Garden
Once you choose to grow your own herb garden, the next step is selecting the assortment of herb plants you want. In addition to all the different herbs out there, each herb has several kinds to choose from—such as basil which has 100s of types.
The life cycles or growing periods vary with different herb plants. Understanding your herb’s life cycle can help you make the best choices. When you go shopping for your herbs, you’ll need to know their life cycle. The 3 primary categories are:
- Annuals: These flowers begin from a seed. During one life cycle they can grow, flower and die. Some good annual herb plants are dill, cilantro, mustard, chervil, basil and borage.
- Biennials: This type of herb can grow for two years and will generally bear “fruit” after the first year. Others (like parsley) produce leaves in both years, but go to seed early in the second growing season. Angelica, chicory and Queen Anne’s lace are just some of the many biennials to select from.
- Perennials: Herbs that tend to thrive for more than two growing seasons are called perennials. Whether or not they come back or for how many years they will come back depends on the location where they grow. Some perennials you might enjoy include yarrow, lemon verbena, mints, rosemary, scented geranium, thyme and lady’s mantle.
In my opinion the best herbs are perennials because I only have to get and plant them once, but I also have fun raising annuals and biennials. Be cautious of how much cold your perennials are exposed to because too much will harm them. You can extend their growing cycle by bringing them in during winter.
There are a few other things you can do to extend the life of your herb plants:
- The garage, basement or cellar is a good place to store some perennials that need to be trimmed back and have the bulb, roots or rhizome unearthed for the winter.
- If you are going to bring your herbs indoors during the colder time of year, use pots instead of planting them in the ground. Some folks even put their containers in the ground, covering them up to the rim. This makes it not complicated to keep them during the colder time of year—just dig up the container at the end of the season.
- Grow your biennials in middle of the summer so that you can get plenty of flowers in the second summer.
- Self-sowers are herb plants that sow their own seeds for the next cycle. Mustard, borage and catnip are just some of the herb plants that are self-sowers.
- Lop off faded blossoms to lengthen the growing cycle of short-lived annuals. Depending on your area’s temperatures; your annuals may self-seed if you clip the herb back at the end of the summer.
- The frost that can result from unexpected cold weather can harm your herb plants if you do not protect them by covering them with a towel, sheet or blanket. If you have your herb plants in pots, you can always move them under a covered stoop.
I hope that these pointers will help you with your herb garden planning. Creating it just as you envision it can be a difficult. Even I make mistakes after all these years, but just keep in mind that you can dig up what doesn’t work and try try again!
Here is more information on Herb Garden Information. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.
Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.
