I would love to see photos of your herb garden... Pretty please?
1] What do you love about the plan or lack of plan you chose?
2] What would you do different?
3] What herb was just too invasive to be worth it's while?
Thank you in advance
Dovey
Show me your herb garden
Wow dovey... nobody answered. I will try and remember to take a photo of my fledgling herb garden this week. I want to expand it (of course) to practically obliterate our side yard but DH doesn't like that plan (wonder why!??)...
What I love is it's right outside my kitchen door. Schlep outside with scissors and cut what you need for the meal. Yum.
What I would do different is remove the irises immediately not wait for 3 years to do it but circumstances prevented me from doing that...
The herb I am fighting right now is pineapple mint, which is beautiful but taking over. I need to move it to the side yard where it can do its thing unharmed and make the air fragrant with pineapple and be beautiful and variegated without having to be constantly tended.
Currently I have a lot of moving of plants to do. I have a HUGE oregano that must be moved out of my flower garden into the herb garden but split also ... it's I swear 4 feet around. I have a sage I need to split - want to keep one by the front door but also want it in the herb garden. Have chocolate and spear mints that spread fast... (which is fine, we like taking over) but need to move them to where they can do their sprawling thing and I have more room to plant other stuff.
Currently I have cilantro that self-seeded because the cilantro went to seed so fast this year - I was away when it happened and didn't even get to gather the coriander seed. Now I have all this little baby cilantro that is like 2 leaves on a stem and it's probably going to be killed when we get frost tonight. Oh well it makes great green fertilizer.
I had tons of basil with my tomatoes and that died with our first frost. :( Wish I'd have been able to harvest even one leaf of it but alas, nature decided otherwise. And I have a large pot of rosemary that I have yet to figure out what to do with. Beautiful rosemary and miraculously it did not die... I don't know what I did to keep it alive either - because this has not been a meticulous gardening year for us.
I hope once I expand I'll have plenty of room to do things like relocate the dill that will spring up everywhere in April... and move the Santolina, and add more lavenders, and add more thyme, and move the French Tarragon so it is not leaning over the rock wall into the neighbors' yard...
Lots lots lots to do... but what a joy working with the herbs. Their fragrance is such a delight.
Ok, too much information I know. I hope you enjoy your herb garden as much as I do mine.
Hey, Dovey, I just saw this thread.
I have no pictures of my herbs, I guess because I just never thought to take pictures of them, and also because they are interplanted with other things, like miniature roses and dianthus, around the edges of my main flower garden. I have an enormous rosemary that is a specimen plant at one end of the garden, regular chives along the main pathway, and garlic chives in one corner. I have a Pineapple Sage that is so large by fall that it's another corner on its own, because everything else in that area has died back by then, and I have a "regular" sage. I have a new Anise Hyssop this year that was truly a beauty in a new bed I added this spring. I grow basils as annuals and parsley as biennials. I have one big pot of aloe vera that lives inside in the winter and under the trees in the summer. Oh, and there is also a southernwood (cousin of wormwood) that I have along a pathway because I love the scent when you brush against it, but we never use it for anything. I have tried a few other things now and then, including an oregano that I finally took out this year because it was so invasive, my one to question #3 above, I guess. I have mint that was in my original soil, and it comes up everywhere. I leave it alone unless it's in my way, as it supposedly adds good enzymes to the soil. So.....I guess that's all at this point. I've grown lemon balm, but we never used it. I've had feverfew that I loved for its pretty like daisy flowers, and I'd like to grow that one again if I can find a place for it. I also have plenty of lavendar around everywhere and I have tried several times to grow dill, but just haven't had good luck with it. I grew cilantro one year, but no one used it so I did not grow it again.
Next year I guess I'll take pictures.
This message was edited Oct 30, 2005 9:36 AM
Wow somebody finally responded! Thanks JanieJoy.
It sounds as if mint is one to be careful of.... I don't use it much in cooking, heck I never cook with mint. Although I like the idea of the fragrance. Maybe I should consider some pineapple mint in a tall pot.
Do you plant basil with tomatoes for a reason?
GardenGran, it's so sad no one used the cilantro, I have a hard time keeping it from bolting. It's an herb we love to add to salsa and it give a great flavour to a green salad. Maybe it's an acquired taste.
I also love the idea of mini roses as a boarder. Never thought of that.
Like both of you I have a few herbs inter-planted around the garden, lavender and rosemary mostly.
I'll probably leave most of them and add some others to the herb garden.
Also the area I have my eye on is close to the back door. There is something very refreshing about stepping outside and snipping fresh herbs for your recipe is it?
Dovey
Dovey, I have neither photos nor a planned area. But I grow French tarragon, chives, garlic chives, several different thymes, a couple of different rosemarys, and sage, etc. for my kitchen garden.
I grow catnip in a hanging basket for my cat. (If it's in the ground, she rolls all over it until it dies.)
Mixed in with my culinary herbs, I grow leeks, shallots, garlic and saffron crocus.
I grow several kinds of basil with tomatoes because it seems to keep the bugs down.
dovey I LOVE stepping out for a snip of this or that and our suppers are so much yummier with fresh herbs.
I plant basil with tomatoes for companion planting reasons. The smell of the basil is supposed to keep the tomato horn worms away and honestly I haven't had a one this year... plus it's nice to harvest the tomatoes and have the basil right there because we often just cut the maters into chunks and slice up thin slices of fresh basil leaves into it with salt & pepper - a delicious fresh and healthy salad!!
I grow catnip too and now it's begun to show up as volunteers.
Right now I have a whole bunch of baby cilantro. I have read that liking cilantro is in your genes - some people hate it and some love it. I also have trouble with it bolting - that's how I got so many seeds that have already germinated.
Not sure how to prevent the bolting... my lettuce bolted too!
I need to grow leeks and shallots (LOVE shallots) and wanted to do saffron crocus but never got around to it this year.
I also have Santolina in my herb garden because it's so pretty and my dill is gorgeous this year. I think when it seeds itself it is happier. Who knows why. All my dill was volunteer this year and it looks very pretty against the other stuff.
I had to pull out my 2 year old Italian flat parsley because the volunteer tomatoes (from ONE little tomato off a salad outside) smothered them. I have to plant a new one next spring... should the Lord tarry.
I love herbs the most of all the things I grow... the fragrance is so amazing.
I just planted a bunch of bulbs given by a neighbor in the middle of the herb area - figure they can't hurt the herbs and will add beauty to the springtime...
Enjoy! Enjoy!!
I love my sage bush because a friend who was moving out of state gave it to me. I dried some leaves from it this year in my dehydrator and hope to get some off to her soon. The sage is pictured below. My herbs are at the end of a raised bed garden. If we get another house, I think I'd put the herbs closer to the back door. Mine are just a collection of this and that. Thank goodness I never planted any mints in with my herbs. The mints would take over.
The most unusual thing I've grown has been saffron crocus. It blooms in the fall here usually after Halloween. I've gathered several threads of saffron from it. I'll probably add them to a rice dish soon.
Most of my herbs were gifts from friends and people my husband knows. I love my dill and my italian flat leaf parsley; however, the butterfly babies like to munch on them too.
We put a big pot of herbs together in the back ala Martha Stewart. The flat leaf parsley got into the rock cracks and came up everywhere. Hubby was not amused, but he let it be till the butterfly caterpillars had eaten all they wanted and moved on. The rosemary has been in that pot for several years now and made it just fine through the winter. I'm in zone 7 or 6 depending on who you talk to.
Darius,
Did you start your tarragon from seed? Every time I buy one in a 4in pot it struggles and either dies or lives a very feeble life. What gives?
I never thought of leeks, M loves them... I'll have to add it to my list.
JanieJoy,
Lettuce bolts?
What is Santolina?
Letting your dill flower is good for your garden because it attracts many beneficial insects.
The same goes for carrots, leave a few in the grown just for the blooms.
dovey, french tarragon isn't grown from seed.
http://www.organicgardentips.com/how_to_grow_french_tarragon.html
I love the smell of santolina (both the green and bluegrey) but it is NOT an edible herb.
darlindeb,
I learned about mints the hard way... the only way to get free of them was to pack up and move to the next city. *L*
Although I do grow Pennyroyal as a ground cover, it's a mint of some sort.
I love it because it repels ants and smells (to my nose) a little like chocolate mint.
If I ever plant mint again- will be in a pot or contained area.
Cheers
Dovey
Darius,
I thought I read that too... but I've seen seed packs at the nursery for "French Tarragon"
What the heck?
So these guys are either selling a seed that will not grow... or Spanish Tarragon?
*grumble - grumble - grumble*
Yes! Lettuce bolts! I planted butter lettuce in a container and it went to flowers - pretty blue ones, I might add. They are STILL trying to bloom in that container, if I can, between raindrops, I'll try and get a picture for you. They looked almost like chickory blossoms.
In the spring I'll try and get you a cutting of my tarragon - if I sent it now it might think it's being cooked and die on you since we're 4 zones apart. It's a hardy perennial here. And one of our favorite things to cook with.
You might be able to root some cuttings indoors.
I'm pretty sure DeBaggio says French Tarragon is sterile and can only be reproduced by cutting or division. So I don't know what's up with those "tarragon" seed packets.
I thought I had a pic of my bronze leaf lettuce bolting but can't find it... quite a sight! Three foot tall stalks topped with bunches of small, bright yellow flowers that turned to fluffy-tufty seedheads like little dandelions.... I think there might be lettuce coming up all over the neighborhood next spring!
I was using the lettuce as a decorative edging in my front landscape bed, and when it started putting up little stalks I thought, sure, let it go to seed, why not? and then it produced these huge alien, branching flower structures! Boy, did I get a lot of "what the heck is that plant?" queries.
OK, if butter lettuce blooms blue, I have to plant some of that next year....
critter, I'll try to find you the EXACT cultivar... also artichokes bloom gorgeous blue.
Cool! I don't suppose you saved seeds...... *hopeful grin*
BTW, I planted a little clump of saffron crocus last fall & loved them. So, I recently put 80 bulbs along the edge of my front walk, and I keep checking for them to start popping up! They had pretty good sprouts when they went in, so I expect to see them any day now... perhaps we will add a little saffron to our Thanksgiving turkey soup! :-D
I love basil, I mean REALLY love basil, so started planting every single variety I could possibly find. (sweet, lemon, cinnamon, African, Thai, globe, purple, mammoth, etc) The Thai basils are beautiful, as well as aromatic (very anisey). They have dark purple blooms, the Siam Queen has huge dark purple cluster blooms.
My favorite, that I allow to bloom freely is the African blue basil. It grows to almost 3 feet, in a large rounded bush. The veins in the leaves, as well as the stems, are a deep purple-ish blue, as are the blossoms. Bees and butterflies are all over it, non-stop, so it keeps the rest of the garden pollinated by having one. My brother uses the African blue, to enhance his honey bees production.
I never replant, unless I find a new variety, the basils always re-seed themselves everywhere.
Which takes me to the bummer list of herbs....dill...argh....and I love dill.....
Growing up in Ohio as a child, you planted dill once, and every year you had dill coming up in places you never thought it could, and never expected it to. You ALWAYS had dill...in Florida, no way. Can't get it to grown no matter what.
Cilantro is a total bust, I think it goes to seed before I even get it out of the car on the way home from the nursery.
I "assumed" I had french tarragon, but after reading your above posts, I'm not so sure now!
Mine is covered with yellow flowers, very anise like in flavor, and about 2-3 feet tall. I guess I never really looked, I thought those yellow flowers were dropping seeds, but maybe it's always coming up from the same rootball?
MerryMary