Your Own Herb Garden

If you don't want to take the effort of managing a fruit or vegetable garden you might still want to have a small herb garden. It is much less work and you can always enjoy fresh herbs to improve your meals with.

There is a big variety of herbs available. So when starting you might have a hard time to choose which ones you want to grow. If this happens to you just take a look in your kitchen and see what herbs you already use and start growing these. You don't need to buy them anymore and have the additional benefit of freshness. Over time you will find more herbs you want to grow and you will find how to use them in your meals. The most popular herbs for a private herb garden are basil, rosemary, parsley, chives, sage, mint, lemon balm, dill, bay leaf and a few others.

The soil in your herb garden should have very good drainage. Most of the herbs don't want it too wet. You can achieve this by mixing the soil with some amount of sand or by putting a layer of crushed rocks beneath it or even both. This will prevent moisture accumulation and will help to keep your plants healthy.

You can start with seeds or with little plants from the shop. Most herbs can be grown easily from seeds so you can save some money compared to buying plants. If you are impatient and want to harvest as soon as possible you should start with plants though. Some of the herbs grow very fast (especially mint). It would be wise to plant these in pots with drainage holes because otherwise they will propagate so fast that you might have just that one herb all over your herb garden after a year or two.

Before harvesting parts of your herb plants you should wait until the plants are established well. This will probably be after a few months. If you need to know how to use herbs in your kitchen look into some cookbooks or search for recipes online. Of course the herbs have their best flavor if you use them fresh. Unfortunately in most areas you will not be able to have fresh herbs all over the year. You have to preserve them for winter.

There are different ways to preserve herbs for later use. You can store them in the deep-freezer. Put chives or pasley into a small plastic container and quick-freeze it. Whenever you need something just take as much as you need and return the rest into the freezer again. When the herbs are defrosted they need to be used quickly. Another method is to dry the herbs. Drying is especially good for herbs you use as tea like mint and lemon balm.

You can either hang them on a line in bunches in a dry room for several weeks or put them into the baking oven for two to four hours at 170 degrees Fahrenheit (77 degrees Centigrade). For storing your dried herbs you need an aroma-proof container. Glass is the best material for this. You should regularly check for moisture during the first few days of storage. If there is any you need to dry the herbs again until there is no moisture left in them. Moisture can cause mildew.

If you enjoy fresh herbs in your meals you should start your own herb garden. It certainly requires some amount of work to set it up but after the initial effort there is not much to do but harvesting and drying or freezing your favorite herbs.