Grow Some Herbs This Season

Spring just keeps getting closer & closer!  Just 8 more days! It's time to make that garden center shopping list. Various herbs will be on my list and I hope yours, too. With Buffet possibly looking at buying the McCormick spice company, we definitely need to find the secret source for Old Bay seeds, right? Hopefully, Buffet wont take the whole operation to Margaritaville....never mind. I've got my Buffets mixed up.

Lavender (shown above) can be used to make a cup of tea, sachets, soap, potpourris, and  many home remedies.

Last year, we grew a nice variety of herbs which we were able to cut and dry in the fall. (see post of March 3, 2011) The lineup went like this:  basil, bee balm, catnip, chives, cilantro, dill, echinacea, lavender, lemon balm, marjoram, oregano, parsley, peppermint, rosemary, sage, french tarragon, and thyme.

         Echinacea, above, attracts lots of pollinators. It's root also has home remedy uses.

Whether you start your herbs from seed or buy single plants, you will find that they thrive in a sunny spot with just average soil and require little care except for watering as needed. They will do well in a corner of a garden plot or do just as well in a flower pot or other container. Nearly all of ours are grown in pots or containers. Only the lavender plant (6 years old now) is in the garden itself.

                                  Bee balm attracts lots of pollinators, too.

I've always had difficulty starting some herbs from seed and found it easier and more successful to buy plants at the garden center. Basil has always defeated my attempts to grow it from seed. I've given up trying & just buy two plants which is all we need anyway. Marjoram seed is so minutely tiny that I think I've planted it too deep in the past and it failed to grow. The same can be said of french tarragon and thyme.

These chives have just popped back up in the past two weeks. They wintered over outside in the container.

The herbs I've started from seed are catnip, chives, cilantro, dill, oregano, and parsley. They start easily and grow quickly. I buy the following herbs as small plants in the spring and all are in a containers of some type except the lavender: lavender (a one time only purchase) lemon balm, marjoram, peppermint (unless it pops back up this spring), rosemary (same plant has been in a container for at least 3 years), sage (same plant in a pot for 2 years), french tarragon, and thyme. The chives in the picture above are in their second year. I bought bee balm and echinacea as plants but use them only to attract bees and butterflies. They are perennials returning each year so there's only a need to buy them one time.

                       Herbs growing in containers on a back stairway to our house.

Some of the above, are definitely invasive plants best suited to be grown on a porch or patio, rather than in a garden bed, or in pots/containers which might be placed on a lawn area. Peppermint sends out roots into the area surrounding it which sprout and continually increase its area. Chives and lemon balm spread huge numbers of seeds which pop up nearly everywhere. Catnip easily re-seeds itself - it's a member of the mint family. Oregano spreads by its roots in much the same way as peppermint, but maybe not as aggressively. Sage does not spread so much as it just gets really BIG in several years unless contained in a pot.

A note on the chives: they seem to change in their third year from a grassy  looking plant to a plant with flat, wide leaves/stems. The plant also becomes much stronger as it gets into the third year. I remove it at that point and start a new plant.

If you're interested in culinary or home remedy uses of any of these herbs, just go to your favorite search engine. You'll find tons of material on them. If you have any questions on growing herbs (NOT herb!), let me know.  I'll be back here soon and I hope you stop by again!