How to start your own first simple Herb Garden!To start a simple herb garden, you should first find a good growing spot. The area where you make your garden should get full sun for at least six hours a day. The soil should be rich and dark and filled with nutrients. If you have heavy clay soil, you will either need to make a raised bed or enrich the soil with some good compost to make it better. Enriched soil is simply soil with a lot of compost mixed into it. Once you have a location for your garden, it is time for the fun part, planning your basic herb garden. Most herb gardens are laid out in geometric shapes. If you prefer a formal look, you may want to edge your garden beds with boxwoods. For a country look, you could plant your herbs in an old wagon wheel, instead. Or you can just slot your herb garden into a vacant spot anywhere.
Next, you will need to choose the plants for your herb garden. If you will be using a certain herb often, you should plan to purchase and plant three to five plants. If you are just buying a plant because you like the way it looks or smells, you may only want to buy one to three plants. If you want to grow a simple herb garden for the kitchen, you may want to add parsley, chives, rosemary, fennel, and sage to your shopping list. For an aromatherapy garden, lavender, lemon grass, and rosemary are popular choices. For a healing garden, try echinacea (coneflowers), pot marigolds, aloe vera and feverfew. A dye garden should include baptisia, French marigolds, and indigo. For your first simple herb garden, try to select hardy herbs that will withstand occasional neglect and can do nicely without lots of pampering. Some good choices include basil, marjoram, sage, mints of all kinds, thyme, catnip, oregano, vervain, and rosemary. Once you have all of the plants for your basic herb garden, it is time to place them in the ground. Pull each plant out of the pot to be sure it is not pot bound. When a plant is pot bound, the roots start to grow up around the sides of the plant’s root ball. Spread the roots at the bottom of the root ball out to keep them from continuing to grow in a circle. Dig a hole and place the plant in so that it is growing at the same level as it was before. When all of your herbs are planted, water them to remove any air pockets. You now have your first simple herb garden. For more information jump to our other herb garden pages! Go to our other Herb Garden Page! Go to another page about growing Herbs!
Happy herb gardening, Patrick
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