Growing Herbs

Growing herbs is a necessity in my vegetable garden. I would no more do without my basil or oregano than I would my tomatoes. You’ll note that I don’t list all the herbs that you can eat but have listed only the most common for my kind of cooking. I’m slowly adding new ones as I experiment with them in my kitchen. If you want to be informed when I add a new article, let me suggest you sign up for the newsletter.

If you are growing herbs for the kitchen, you might do well to consider these guidelines:

The garden should be close to the kitchen I know it sound a little trite to say this but you’d be amazed at how many gardeners plant their culinary herbs in the back garden and then when they need them – find it is just “too far” to walk to harvest. Put them right at the back door. Grow the most common ones in a container if you have to, but grow the ones you’ll use the most, right where it is easiest to harvest them.

Culinary herbs want full, hot sunshine. You can experiment with afternoon sun and no morning sun but without that hot sun, the herbs will stretch out and grow lanky. This affects how they taste as well as how they look. You won’t be happy with a shaded herb garden and neither will your plants. So the quick answer to the question, can I grow herbs in the shade is “not really”.

Culinary herbs want soil with good drainage and low levels of fertility. You’ll grow a much nicer tasting herb if you starve it a little bit than if you overfeed and overwater. This is not to say that we want to allow our herbs to wilt rather than water them or not throw a shovel of compost around them in the early spring. But it is to say that we don’t feed them liberally with liquid fertilizer or granular chemical fertilizer. That amount of food will produce soft growth that lacks the special flavour that you really want (that’s why you’re growing your own herbs).

Growing herbs is easy then. Keep the plants in the full sunshine, water them only when the soil is dry and don’t feed other than a shovel of compost in the early spring.

Specific information about growing and harvesting each of these herbs is found on the individual plant page. If you want to know how to identify your herbs, here's some thoughts on how to make your own herb garden marker

•Anise is a annual with licorice-tasting leaf that is fairly straightforward if you watch the transplanting. Here's the tips to get it into your garden.

• Some folks consider Arugula to be a herb - some consider it to be a vegetable. No matter. Here's how to grow it.

•Basil is my favourite cooking herb and it is easy to grow as well.

•Bee Balm has fragrant leaves and is indeed a component of Earl Gray Tea.

•Borage has attractive blue flowers, self sows and goes in summer drinks. Here's how to grow it.

•Caraway is used in baking and cheese making but can be very weedy in your garden.

•Growing Catnip is a worthy exercise from a cat's point of view or if you require some for Chinese medicinal purposes. This is a plant thug so beware.

•Chamomile is grown for its healthy relaxing and digestive-aiding teas produced by the flowers of this attractive herb garden plant.

•Chervil

•Chives are excellent and easy to grow in the sunny garden. I can't imagine a great fried egg sandwich without them and the uses of garlic chives are even more interesting and make growing herbs very worthwhile.

•Coriander seeds and leaves are useful if harvested properly and at the right time. Here's what to watch for.

•Growing Comfrey is easy if you give it part shade and leave it alone. Great for ornamental as well as herbal use.

•Dill is one of the most adaptable and easiest growing herbs. Good thing too or my kids wouldn't have developed a taste for dill pickles.

•Fennel or Florence Fennel has useful roots, stalks, leaves and flower seeds. What more could you ask for?

•Garlic is wonderful stuff and the perfect accompaniment to so many great meals. Here's how to grow it and some varieties to look out for (By the way - elephant garlic isn't really garlic - here's what it is). I can't imagine growing herbs without this plant.

•Horseradish is hot stuff but here's how to grow and tame it.

•Lavender is also a culinary herb and here's how to grow it.

•Lemon Balm is a member of the mint family and easy to grow. Use it where life has handed you a lemon to make lemon-aid.

•Marjoram

• Oregano is beloved of Greek and Italian cooking and growing herbs like this one is central to your culinary herb garden. Also includes recommended varieties.

•Growing Rosemary has become a bit of a passion for me and while I can't overwinter it outdoors, it hasn't stopped me from growing it in containers in my kitchen herb garden.

•Growing sage is easily enough done that you'll want to use this plant in the ornamental garden as well.

And if you find growing fragrant plants to your liking, you're going to want to grow scented geraniums I've grown a few over the years and here's a bit of a listing plus my comments. I'll keep reviewing the plants as I grow them (or you can tell me about them).

•Sorrel: here are the tips for growing sorrel with its sour-apple-lemon taste for perking up summer salads.

•Growing Spearmint isn't the problem, sometimes finding the real stuff and stopping it from growing are greater challenges.

•Growing Summer Savory is an exercise in easy gardening that is both for the flavour and the flower of it.

•Thyme is one of the basic herbs and easy to grow in well-drained soils.

•Growing watercress is easier with flowing water but it is not necessary to get this spicy leaf.

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