Putting Together Your First Dedicated Herb Garden
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Herbs play well with other plants. In fact, many of them (like rue, catnip, garlic and marigold) make good companion plants for pest control with vegetables and flowers. (When you don't want to use pesticides, companion planting can save you a lot of headaches.) You may even have a lavender plant (at your garden gate, of course), or a rosemary bush as a privacy screen. That's all a little different from having a dedicated herb patch.
Herbs may not be the most beautiful plants around. In fact, some of them can get leggy (that's a polite term for scraggly), and have unimpressive little flowers that look cheerful but hardly photo worthy. Still, there's something magical about a dedicated herb garden. I hate to admit it, but I think it may have something to do with power. It's a powerful feeling, knowing you can run out to a central spot in your garden (say next to the back door) and harvest everything you need for a nice soup, stew or salad in less time than it takes to heat a cup of tea in the microwave.
It's also a pretty nice feeling come harvest time when you realize all that foliage is enough raw material to make herb wreaths, potpourris, herb blends, teas, remedies -- and still have enough left over for next year's seed.
If you're planning an herb garden this season, I've written a number of posts that can help. If I can figure out the CAD software I bought a few seasons ago, I may be compiling some herb layouts that can help, too. While your garden is still in the planning stages, take a look at these past posts for some timely tips:
Planning Your First Herb Garden
5 Herb Growing Quick Tips
10 Herbs for Your Spring Garden
Top 10 Most Overlooked Herbs
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Photo by .Saintfevrier at el.wikipedia [CC-BY-3.0-gr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/gr/deed.en)], from Wikimedia Commons http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Collecting_pot_herbs.jpg
5 Herb Growing Quick Tips
10 Herbs for Your Spring Garden
Top 10 Most Overlooked Herbs
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Photo by .Saintfevrier at el.wikipedia [CC-BY-3.0-gr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/gr/deed.en)], from Wikimedia Commons http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Collecting_pot_herbs.jpg
Nice , I am planning my Garden now and plan on planting a lot of herbs along with the vegetables. I am planning on putting the herbs in strategic spots for pest control. Not quite a dedicated herb garden but dedicated spots for the herbs.. Thank you for the links they are very interesting and worth while reading.
ReplyDeleteThanks Eddie, and good luck. Once your herbs are up, you can harvest them throughout the summer to make pest sprays. Sprays are effective, inexpensive and safe to use.
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