Planting a Herb Garden
<<< Previous: Position & SoilGetting your herbs
Seeds
Seed catalogues are packed with innumerable varieties of both common and obscure herbs, but successfully raising plants from seed can be tricky for a beginner, and hit and miss even if you have some experience. If you're a keen cook but not a keen gardener, it might be best to give seeds a miss, at least at first.
Nursery Plants
Buying young herb plants is probably the best way for inexperienced or impatient growers. The plants you buy will already be large enough to plant out, although a period of hardening would probably be a good idea, as would be letting them grow in a protected location until they've grown large enough to survive the inevitable snail attacks.
The choice of varieties you can buy may be more limited, especially if you're buying from a local garden centre, but there's always the option of mail order.
Supermarkets
Most supermarkets now sell live 'growing' herbs in pots. These herbs can be planted out in your herb garden, but there are a few things to beware of. These plants will normally have been intensively grown, probably hydroponically, before being transplanted into the pot you buy them in. This means that the flavour is unlikely to be anywhere near as good as plants grown at a more natural pace. Also, they will be packed too closely together to survive well for long.
Many of these plants can be successfully grown on in your herb patch though, so long as the individual stems and root systems are seperated or at least spread out before replanting. Be aware too of seasonality - planting intensively grown herbs out before their natural growing season is unlikely to be successful.
Choice of Herbs
With dozens and dozens of different herbs available, the temptation is to go mad and grow every herb there is. It's probably a good idea though to limit yourself to the herbs that you regularly use.
'Staple' herbs that most cooks will use, and are suited to the British climate, include thyme, rosemary, bay, sage, parsley and chives.
Other less hardy herbs such as basil, oregano, tarragon etc can also be grown but are unlikely to survive a cold snap - harvest them well before the first frost is expected, or move them to the greenhouse or indoors to continue harvesting into winter.
If your herb growing activites are successful, then you'll have to deal with a large amount of herbs all ready for harvesting at the same time. It's now time to explore the different ways of preserving herbs, which will be the subject of a future article. Stay tuned...
