Herb Garden Information
Neighbour’s Envy: Grow Your Own Herb Garden
Herbs are nature’s gift to mankind; they offer a pandora full of remedies that is still not fully fathomed and known. The origin of herbs relate to the Latin word “herba,” which means “green crops”. Herbs are plants that are valued for flavour, aromas and medicinal properties. Herbs find various usages in cooking, medicine, spiritual purposes and even controlling pesticides. The parts of the plant that can be used ranges widely from leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, and resin to barks. Grow your own herbs by gathering important and useful information on them in a matter of weeks and become a proud owner of a home herb garden.
While humanity has continuously engrossed in farming and agriculture for survival since the early ages, cultivating herbs for medicinal, visual and aesthetic appeal cannot be denied. Cultivating plants for the main purpose –providing food for the family during season and off-season when rains were scanty was the main goal. While accumulating and storing seeds for re-cultivating was researched, hybrid farming to grow healthy and resistant plants has also promised mankind a persistent yield of organic products.
Valuable tips for novice herb gardener
• A careful selection of your first herbs without rushing into ordering a bulk of the catalogue that supplements the season and the time of the year should be your first choice.
• It is no secret that a good and healthy herb garden has to stand on good soil. Feeding the soil is equivalent to feeding the herbs. Crushed leaves, grass clippings, organic foliage and home-made compost greatly enrich the soil. Your plants will never be happier.
• Plan for outdoor and indoor herb gardening. The herb plants can be transplanted from indoors in pots as seedlings to outdoors in spring. Not all herbs can transplant, plan to grow these herbs outdoors straightaway directly in your herb garden, eg Fennel, Anise, Dill and Coriander.
• Egg shells are wonderful natural fertilizer used in organic farming. You can even add an eggshell to the coffee in the filter, and your morning coffee will be less bitter. The used coffee grounds, eggshell and bio-degradable filter are then readily available for the compost pile. Fill biodegradable eggshell halves with potting soil instead of using peat pots to start seedlings for the garden.
• Whether you are growing culinary, medicinal or tea herbs and whether they are annual or perennial, they all need the same basic ingredients: three parts of garden soil, one part peat, compost or organic manure and one part sand. It’s that simple. Give your herbs a balanced soil and you have conquered the secret of producing healthy and long living herbs.
Cultivating your own kitchen herb garden is very satisfying way of getting a ready and fresh supply of culinary herbs. There are increasing numbers of different varieties of herbs that can grow with little care and can be a real money saver as well. Some of the best varieties are uncommon and are not available in the market, however growing them is simple and fun. Other varieties that are offered as plants are not the best to be had.
