DIY the green-fingered way (growing herbs) (Growing and Caring for Herbs (in General))

Member Name: Pandora321

Product:	Growing and Caring for Herbs (in General)
Date:	09/08/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy, inexpensive, can be grown in a garden or containers

Disadvantages: None really

I've always rather avoided gardening, finding it particularly tedious when forced to spend endless days at garden centres by my parents. For some reason, however, over the last couple of years this interest has rather snuck up on me and I am now the rather over-excited owner of a full blown garden with veggie patch. Some of the first few plants I started to grow were herbs. Herbs have many advantages for the novice gardener, so here are my thoughts on growing them.

~Inexpensive~
For those who like to start projects and then quickly get bored of them, or those with shallow pockets due to the credit crunch, herbs are marvellously inexpensive to buy. Our local garden centre (which is much cheaper than the large, branded versions) is currently selling them for £1 each - a complete bargain. For a small outlay (particularly compared to some other plants), a decent range of herbs could be purchased, with no worries that you've wasted lots of money if you decide that gardening isn't for you after all.

~Small~
Herbs, in general, start off pretty small so they can be grown easily in containers or window boxes, ideal for those who want some greenery but don't have the space for a full blown garden. A good range can be fitted into one window box, providing variety and interest.

~Evergreen~
Herbs are evergreen, providing colour for your garden throughout winter when a lot of other plants have died back.

~Easy to grow~
I'm a bit 'black fingered' in that I've always tended to somehow kill plants, rather than nurture them, but even I've managed to grow a decent selection of herbs - and they've survived! Mine have all been fine growing outside in the UK; they seem fairly hardy and don't need too much maintenance in the way of fertiliser or extensive weeding. Personally I just give them a bit of fertiliser at the start of the growing season, and pull up nearby weeds when they get large (I'm not really a high tech or perfectionist gardener!). I don't have children but I would think that herbs would be a suitable 'mini-garden' for them to cultivate in- or outdoors if they are interested in this kind of thing.

~Useful~
If you choose your species carefully, the herbs you grow not only look and smell nice, but you can use them in your cooking too. I personally always prefer fresh herbs to the dry versions, but buying fresh herbs for each meal I'm planning (which inevitably each need a small amount of a different herb) is far too expensive, and usually a lot of the herb will go off before I've used the whole pack. Now, however, if I need herbs for a recipe I just go into my garden and pick the quantity I need - no cost and no waste. Fantastic.

~My herbs~
Here's a list of the herbs I'm currently growing for anyone interested:

Rosemary - I bought this as a small plant from a garden centre; it's now the size of a small tree. Lesson learnt: use lots of it so it stays small! Rosemary smells absolutely lovely every time you brush past it, and is useful for roasts and casseroles.

Sage - I've got a funny purple sage (sorry, I don't know its proper name) that again started small but is now a miniature triffid. It adds a nice bit of colour to the garden though. Sage doesn't smell too strong unless you rub it, but it is useful for some pasta dishes and a roasted vegetable dish I have.

Curly parsley - you get different versions of parsley and mine is the curly, rather than flat-leaved, variety although most of my recipes don't seem to specify which to use (and the food has tasted fine using this one!). Parsley doesn't really smell but looks quite greenly pretty. It's probably my most extensively used herb as I use it in pasta and fish dishes and things like goulash and casseroles.

Marjoram - I got this recently as a cutting from a colleague; it's got pretty shaped leaves and smells quite strongly when you rub the leaves. I haven't found a recipe requiring it yet, but as I got it for free I'm quite happy! [correction: on looking through one of my recipe books, it seems if I ever fancy making cannellini bean soup I will finally require use of my marjoram plant]

Mint - mint, like bamboo, is one of those plants on a mission to take over the world so I've always been advised to grow it in a pot even when planting it out in the garden, otherwise it pops up everywhere and you never get rid of it. This was another cutting from my colleague - I would highly recommend asking green-fingered friends and family if they've got any spares as I've got an astounding number of plants/seeds/cuttings for free; people are amazingly generous :) Mint is useful for moussaka, minty vegetable soups and adding to Pimms (yummy).

Bay - this is not a small herb as bay comes in tree form! I got cuttings from my mum's giant bay tree and it seems fairly hardy as mine was abandoned in a pot the entire of last year when I forgot about it and never watered it! I only use bay very occasionally for cooking.

Basil - I am proud to say that this is my first herb that I grew from seeds - and it was dead easy. They germinated pretty quickly in a biscuit tin on my kitchen windowsill (high tech as ever), I then put them out in my cloche (an old kitchen cupboard with plastic roof in the garden) to acclimatise and then have planted them in a grow bag (I've run out of garden) where they seem to be doing really well - too well, and I've had to start giving some of them away! I use basil in tonnes of recipes, but particularly to make my own pesto for when I need a dead cheap meal just before payday! Word of warning: the slugs/snails seem to really like basil as it's the only plant in my garden they attack.

When I've got a bit of money I'd like to get some chives, thyme, coriander and oregano next as I use all of these in quite a few recipes (oregano is used extensively in pasta dishes, my staple food!).

~Summary~
So if you're thinking of adding a bit of greenery to your home by getting some pot plants, or planning to start making your garden work for you I'd highly recommend growing some herbs as an inexpensive yet useful addition to your home and garden. It's easy, fun and, in the long run, even saves you money - and you can't go wrong with that.

Summary: Go on, give herbs a try.