Planning and Creating Your Own Herb Garden

At some time or another, every cook fantasizes about plucking herbs out of his or her own garden to create a fresh and flavorful culinary masterpiece. While dried spices may “do the trick" when it comes to flavoring meals, the idea of maintaining and utilizing an herb garden has a romantic appeal that cannot be found in the bottom of a spice jar. Even if your thumb is less than green, planning and creating your own personal herb garden requires little more skill than whipping up dinner.

Choosing Your Herbs
There are such a large number of herbs to choose from that many beginning herb gardeners often have difficulty deciding which ones to plant. If you can’t decide which herbs to place in your garden, take a look in your spice cabinet. Do you use a lot of oregano? Plant it. However, if the only time you’ve only taken the dried basil out is to clean dust off of the spice jar, then planting basil would be a waste.

The following herbs offer a good variety of flavors for beginners:

• Strong Herbs
  • winter savory
  • rosemary
  • Sage
• Accent Herbs
  • sweet basil
  • dill
  • mint
  • sweet marjoram
  • tarragon
  • thyme
• Blending Herbs
  • chives
  • parsley
  • summer savory

In addition to choosing herbs based on personal taste, also take a moment to determine how much maintenance you plan on giving your herb garden. If you don’t want to replant herbs on a yearly basis, then annuals (which bloom one season and then die) would not be a good choice. Biennials (which live two seasons, blooming only during the second season) and perennials (which bloom every year) might make a better choice.

The following is a list of herbs divided into annuals, biennials, and perennials:

• Annuals
  • anise
  • basil
  • chervil
  • coriander
  • dill
  • summer savory
• Biennials
  • caraway
  • parsley
• Perennials
  • chives
  • fennel
  • lovage
  • marjoram
  • mint
  • tarragon
  • thyme
  • winter savory

Plotting Your Garden
Herb gardens do not require a lot of space, and can be as large—or as small—as the plants allow. However, an average kitchen garden usually measures around 20 by 4 feet. Mark off individual 12 by 18-inch plots within the area for different plantings. Do not plant any mint within your garden. Rather, contain mint in pots or other containers, as mint will invade the entire garden and suffocate the other herbs.

Do you lack the space needed for the herbs you have chosen to plant? Don’t be afraid to use planters and various containers to grow herbs. Some mint varieties make wonderful, fragrant additions to hanging baskets. And, if you dread digging up your annuals every fall, simply place them in containers. You’ll still have to dig them up, but it will be easier than tilling soil and separating plants in your garden.

Preparing the Soil
Like any garden, herb gardens require good drainage. No herb can grow well in poorly drained soil. If your area does not drain well, you can modify it to support herbs. Simply remove 15-18 inches of soil across the garden site. Place a 3-inch layer of crushed gravel (or a similar) material across the dug area. Before returning the topsoil, mix it thoroughly with compost or sphagnum peat and sand. This will lighten the soil mixture and provide better drainage.

Fertilizing your herb garden may be tempting. After all, fertilizer commercials taunt gardeners with promises of lush foliage and endless bounties. This does not apply to herbs! As long as the soil is reasonably fertile (can weeds grow?), the herbs will grow fine. Overly fertile soil prompts plants to produce excess amounts of foliage, with little flavor to show for it. If some herbs in your garden do require a little fertilizer (chervil, fennel, lovage, and summer savory), adding a few bushels of peat or compost per 100 square feet of garden area will do the trick.

Planting Herbs
With so many home improvement centers carrying diverse plant species, it is very easy to simply purchase young herb plants and transplant them directly into gardens. If you choose to do this, simply follow the attached directions and watch as your plants take off.

If you plan on starting your herbs from seeds, remember that smaller seeds should not be buried deeply. Likewise, larger seeds require planting at a deeper depth. Having problems spreading smaller seeds? Simply mix them with sand and then spread them across the soil. Doing so will help ensure more even coverage. After sowing the seeds, take care to water gently until they have taken root, or they may wash away.

No matter which manner you decide to start your herb garden, make sure to place name markers throughout the garden so that you remember which herbs are planted where. Popsicle sticks work well, or simply use the markers that came with the plants.

Maintaining the Garden
Herbs thrive under regular watering and constant pruning. Often, it seems that the more herbs you use, the more will grow to take their place. However, you don’t want any of the herbs overstepping their boundaries. Taking time to divide and remove rapidly growing herbs will not only provide more herbs to plant in other places, but will ensure that no herb overruns the garden.

In particular, if you see leaves or flowers that appear diseased or spent, remove them. Rust is a common problem in herb gardens, and appears as bright orange markings on foliage. If removing diseased leaves does not stop the rust from spreading, use a mild commercial copper spray. If the copper spray still fails to halt the spread of rust, then remove and destroy the affected plants.

You may also find caterpillars in your herb garden. These can easily be removed by hand picking. If further action is needed, wormwood spray or insecticides may do the trick. When using insecticides, however, keep in mind that anything you put on your plants will be ingested. If you can’t eat it, don’t use it.

Without a doubt, herb gardens offer a simple and affordable way for home cooks and diners alike to savor the diverse flavors of homegrown herbs. And, while store-bought herbs offer convenience, growing your own herbs offers the ability to for cooks to use fresh ingredients grown and under their own watchful eyes. And that’s something that just can’t be placed in a jar.