Planning an herb garden: Sun is essential. Most of our culinary herbs come from the Mediterranean and other sun-drenched regions, so they will need a place where the sun shines at least eight hours a day. Growing herbs indoors requires a very sunny south-facing windowsill, and even so, you likely wont get as lush a harvest as you would outdoors. Be sure to read the label on the seed pack or on the plant info stick to determine the amount of daily sun needed. Seeds or plants? You can buy herb seeds or herb plants. Small herb plants, ready to go outside, are available in garden centers or by mail order. Beginners may find it easiest to start with plants. If you order from a catalog or Web site, the plants should not be shipped until the time that it is normally warm enough to plant them in your part of the country. Seeds are much less expensive and offer a far wider range of varieties and flavors, but in most parts of the country seeds will need to be started indoors one to two months before it is warm enough in spring to move them outside. You can start seeds indoors in small pots in a sunny window or under lights and transplant them. Or, if the container in which you plan to grow them is light enough to carry (when it is full of moist potting mix) and you have well-lit space, you can start the seeds right in the pot and move the whole shebang outside after the last frost. Good drainage, good size. Make sure your container has a nice-sized hole so that surplus water can drain away; herbs cant stand to have their roots sitting in too-wet soil. The shape of the container doesnt matter to a plant, but size does: A larger volume of potting mix dries out more slowly, so use the largest pot you can. Its better to combine two or more plants in a large pot than to use several little pots. Good soil. Gardeners talk about soil, but for containers, its actually better to use something labeled potting mix, rather than anything labeled potting soil. What is sold as potting soil is likely to be poor-quality and sticky with poor drainage. Potting mix is lighter, made mostly from organic matter such as peat or composted plant matter, and designed to give container plants the texture and drainage they need. Slow start. Herb seedlings may not look like much in their first weeks, but once they get going in warm weather they will thrive. Plan to water: Because the potting mix in a pot dries out quickly, you will need to water frequently. (Check by sticking your finger into the soil. If it feels dry an inch beneath the surface, its time to water.) Plan to fertilize: That frequent watering tends to wash nutrients from the pots soil, so you will need to replenish them with fertilizer. Use a regular houseplant fertilizer at one-half the strength recommended on the label every three weeks or so. Or add a slow-release or organic fertilizer when you plant. Some potting mixes come with slow-release fertilizer pellets already mixed in. NOTE: Miracle Grow Shake ‘n feed for tomatoes, fruits and vegetables has worked very well for me. Herbs are all about leaves. Its the leaves we eat in most cases, not the flowers. So avoid using a fertilizer made to encourage flowers. And keep up with the harvesting to keep plants bushy and discourage them from blooming; often, blooming will change the flavor of the leaves. Harvest the oldest stems individually with scissors rather than mowing the whole plant to keep a steady stream of leaves coming. Like with like. Herbs, like all plants, vary in their needs. So make sure the plants you use together need the same conditions. Rosemary, which likes its soil drier and leaner, wont mix well with basil, which likes more water and fertilizer. Planting in pots makes it easy to give each plant the kind of soil, fertilizer and watering it needs. Mix it up. In addition to combining well-matched herbs in the same pot, you can mix them with compatible flowers. In fact, many flowers--such as pansies, nasturtiums and marigolds--are edible. If you are starting to grow your herb from seeds, be sure to start them indoors in February – March. I start mine in small Dixie cups with holes punched into the bottom and filled with some Miracle grow potting soil. After the last frost has passed, the small plants can be moved outside during the day and return inside at night for a week so they get used to the sun. When you are ready to put them into their final pots, be sure to remove all the old soil first. I recommend using gallon sized pots so the plants can grow well and not get root bound. Then place some quarter sized rocks into the bottom of the pot to cover the drain holes a bit. This way the water can drain out but the soil cannot. Fill the pot with some good potting soil up to about 2” from the top edge of the pot. Select the plants you wish to transplant and peel the Dixie cup off the root ball and place it into the potting soil. Push the plant down slightly then pack more potting soil around the plant to cover the roots and fill the rest of the pot up. Press the dirt down a bit – not too much. When you water the plant the dirt will pack down and you may need to add more soil to keep the roots covered. Plants in the pots need to be watered daily and twice a day in very hot weather. Wait till the second or third sets of leaves grow on the plants before adding some fertilizer. You can use tomato cages on tomatoes and herbs to support the branches of the plants. One of the final items I recommend is getting yourself a cheap dehydrator to dry your herbs. They work well and are worth buying. Be sure to label your dried herbs because sometimes they look the same when dried. Be sure to research your herbs to see if you need to be collecting the leaves or the flowers. Enjoy
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:22:04 +0000
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