Creating your own home herb garden is a very rewarding activity, it is also a great way to save money, rather than buying herbs from the supermarket.

So many unnatural processed foods are available to us today, just read the labels and it’s really quite disturbing; Emulsifier: E471, Maltodextrin, Anti-caking Agents: E341 etc., do you understand what these ingredients are? I know that I do not.

It is satisfying to know that you have grown your own produce, and that it is fresh and free from chemicals. Of course you don’t have to use the herbs straight away when you harvest them, you can freeze them, dry them or preserve them using vinegar or salt.

You can create an outdoor home herb garden to add colour and variety to your garden, planting them in the borders or arranged in attractive pots. Alternatively you can create an indoor home herb garden, windowsill herb gardens are very pretty and very convenient for cooking with when placed in the kitchen. A combination of indoor and outdoor would allow for the widest range of herbs to do well, as different herbs thrive in different conditions.

It is very enjoyable and satisfying to cook with herbs, one of my favourites being a lamb roast sprinkled with rosemary, but even if you don’t actually use the herbs for cooking yourself, they are decorative in the home and garden and there is also the option to harvest them and give them as gifts to friends and family or even sell them to your local greengrocers.

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One major advantage of growing our herbs indoors is that we can have
fresh herbs all year round.  I have recently taken the coriander and
parsley from my large mixed herb outdoor pot, and re potted them into
their own small pots. I have now placed these onto my large kitchen
window ledge, which fortunately gets plenty of sun.

Curled Parsley and Coriander Herbs

Most herbs need plenty of sunlight, you can usually find the specific
details by reading the seed packet or the little plastic information
card that comes with potted plants.  For this reason, a sunny
windowsill is an ideal place to grow them.  The following details were on the little cards of the coriander and parsley:

Coriander
Coriandrum sativum
An annual grown for both its distinctively flavoured bright green young leaves and spicy aromatic seeds.

Suitable for: Plant in full sun in a rich light soil. Ideal for tubs and pots.
Flowering time: Mid to late summer
Height (approx): Up to 60cm (2ft)
Culinary uses: Widely
used in Asian and Middle Eastern dishes. Use fresh leaves in salads,
curries, sauces or as a garnish. The seeds are used in curries, to
flavour meat and poultry and in cakes, breads and biscuits.
Care: Water well before planting and until established.

Curled Parsley
Petroselinum crispum
A biennial herb with curly leaves. Makes a good edging plant for the herb garden.

Suitable for: Prefers a rich moist soil in a sunny or partially shaded location. Ideal for tubs and pots.
Height (approx): Up to 60 cm (2ft)
Culinary Uses: Chopped leaves can be used in green salads, soups, sauces, vegetables. Serve as an accompaniment to fish.
Traditional Medicinal Uses: Sometimes used as a diuretic or for the relief of rheumatism.
Care: Water well before planting and until established.

As my window ledge fills up with many herbs (as I fully intend it to), I
can move the parsley further away from the window as it can tolerate a
partially shaded location. I am looking forward to using my fresh
coriander and parsley in salads – I get so bored of iceberg lettuce! I
also make a lot of soups and curries and both of these herbs will be
wonderful additions to them to add flavour. Both of these herbs will
also serve as a garnish to finished dishes, for a professional touch.

Window Sill Herb Garden

An indoor, or in particular a window sill, home herb garden is a great
hobby, and if you’re an avid cook, you will know that there is no
substitute for having fresh herbs and spices nearby at your disposal.
Growing your own indoor home herb garden and having it right there
where you can see and smell it is just fantastic, and it will reward
you constantly by adding fragrance and beauty to your culinary
masterpieces and to your home.

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You want to grow your herb in the best possible conditions with regard to soil, water, air and sunlight. As your herbs grow, you may notice a tendency for them to struggle.  For example if a plant is looking limp it may not be getting enough sunlight in which case you should move it to a more suitable position, or maybe it needs more nutrients, if so you can mix plant food to the water or use a fertilizer. Changes should be made in order to maintain the health of your herbs, this will allow your plants to continue to thrive.

For this reason I would recommend starting with just a few herbs in pots (this can be indoors or outdoors), so that they can be moved around easily. Make sure the pots have good drainage and when planting seeds, do not plant them too deep. Read up on the information provided on the seed packets or on the little information cards that are provided when buying potted herbs.

Most herbs are really quite resilient and you will soon get used to which ones prefer which conditions. Prune them regularly taking off dead leaves. Simply by learning about them and monitoring them you will be able to enjoy them for years to come.

INDOOR HOME HERB GARDEN
An indoor herb garden has the advantage of allowing you to grow your herbs all year round.
For beginners, the windowsill is a great place to set up an indoor home herb garden, a sunny kitchen windowsill would be absolutely ideal if you intend to use your herbs for cooking.
Shop around for attractive pots that will compliment your home decor. Multiple pot trays are a favourite of mine, this allows you to have several herbs grouped together.

OUTDOOR HOME HERB GARDEN
If you want a large, varied home herb garden you may want to plant outside. Bear in mind the time of year you are planting, Rosemary will grow all year round, whereas Basil is more of a summer herb, so you wouldn’t plant it outside until perhaps the spring.  If you are growing your herbs from seed you will probably start them off indoors and then transfer them outside at the appropriate time of year provided that they are fairly established.

You can use herbs for decorative purposes in your garden, for instance you could have a large pot with an ornamental citrus fruit tree, and plant herbs around the base. If you have bare walls you could plant creeping thyme which has red flowers when it blooms, and is a lovely alternative to ivy. You can plant this anywhere you would normally plant a creeper.
Herbs can have a practical role to play: Herbs from the mint family (notably peppermint and spearmint) have been used for pest control, repelling mice, ants, lice, flies and moths.

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After planting these herbs rather randomly in a good quality compost, I simply made sure they had enough water and left them to their own devices. They all did marvellously at first, the only one to suffer was the curry plant, I have no idea why but it started to look rather limp and wasn’t sprouting new shoots all over the place like all the other herbs. I used a few of them in recipes that I cooked but only used them fresh, I didn’t harvest them and use them dried, frozen or preserved in salt or vinegar, I think it is fair to say that I was a rather lazy herb gardener!

The herbs flourished really well with little to no attention, they survived over the winter (although it didn’t look like they had). Sure enough in the spring they would burst into life again, sprouting all over the place. The mint in particular was growing very aggressively, I had planted it in the far right corner, but it very quickly started to spring up across the whole area and I think it started to suffocate the other herbs. I had been warned about this problem by my mother and grandmother, they suggested it might be better to grow the mint seperately in a pot. I should have listened to them, I realize that now. The herb garden was looking overgrown and untidy and all you see was lots of mint!

I decided, with much prompting from my husband, that it was time to clear the area and do something different. I gathered as much mint together as I could, made mint sauce from some of it and sent the rest to my mother to be distributed to any friends and family that might be interested. My husband then proceeded to dig up all the roots and stems etc., fresh compost was put down and we left it at that until we decided what to do. I still wanted a herb garden really, and maybe I would do it again soon, but definitely grow the mint in a pot! Incidentally it took us ages to get rid of the mint, it kept growing back, so we treated the whole area with Weedol, and it was still growing back, we finally killed it off by covering the whole area with black plastic sheeting weighed down with bricks – not pretty but it eventually worked and the area was clear.

I will most likely begin a new herb garden in this area, we have not used it for anything else since and I do love herbs, mostly for cooking but I am interested in other benefits too, like healing and maybe herbal teas. For now I have bought a large garden pot and have planted a few herbs in it to gently ease me back into herb gardening. You can see this in the main photograph of my blog, I have planted broad leaved sage, chives, coriander, curled parsley, rosemary and alpine strawberry.