I am a newbie to Herbs and I know nothing about them. I would like to grow my own herbs that I use for cooking such as basil and thyme plus a few others. I just got a greenhouse so they will be growing in there mainly. How do I learn to do this and when can I grow them? Oh, I would love to grow some kind of tea also.
Thanks,
Jesse
Newbie here
Heya, Jesse! Welcome! I have a lot of fun with herbs. I use them for cooking, but I also love them for their fragrance and tuck them into landscape beds. I should have a bunch of different basil varieties to offer in a couple of months, maybe sooner if I get my act together and start dechaffing them... They're easy to grow from seed, and I'll bet they'd do well in your greenhouse. Have you come across any scented geraniums (pelargoniums)? I love them! They're tender perennials, so they overwinter in my morning room... If you put them in a 10 or 12 inch pot, they will get big! The scent from them (different ones smell like roses, spices, fruit, lemon, etc.) is wonderful, especially when you brush against them.
I'm not sure if you meant an actual tea plant, which I don't have any experience with... but there have been a couple of good threads on this forum about herbs used for tea.
A lot of perennial herbs will grow well outside your greenhouse, also... thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage... But you may be able to continue harvesting over the winter from a greenhouse pot. I have a rosemary that has come in for the last several winters, but I've never had much luck bringing in other herbs -- then again, I don't have a greenhouse! :-)
I just have to say, wow, every time I turn around you've added another interest to your gardening repertoire! I think your thumb is green all the way to your shoulder... plants just seem to leap up and dance for you! So I think you'll have a lot of fun trying some herbs. :-)
Jesse, when I lived in Asheville (6b), I grew all kinds of culinary herbs in the ground. Only the basil was an annual. The french tarragon died down every fall but came back in spring. My rosemary (3 of them) grew to 5 feet tall in a flower bed up against the house, lots of sun and some wind protection. I don't remember what else I grew... several types of thyme, greek oregano, sage, and of course chives. Plus curly and flat leaf parsley, which are biennials and quickly go to seed their second year. Lemongrass has to be brought inside for winter but should do fine in a greenhouse.
Good Luck!
Thanks for your sweet words critter. I never knew that I had a green thumb. A long time ago I bought a little pine norfolk island pine tree to grow inside and it died. So I concluded from that that I could not grow anything inside. And all these years I thought I had a black thumb. It was nice to learn that I actually could grow something. I have lost a lot of plants since I have been gardening but with most of them I have learned many lessons and know not to repeat my mistakes. I wish that I could find the lady that first got me growing plants. She was my case worker and she had plants in her office. One day I commented on them and she sort of challenged me to buy some plants and start my own indoor garden. She knew that I would not back down from a challenge and that was the greatest thing that she ever did for me. I wish I could find her to thank her but she left that job and went somewhere else. She did the greatest thing that she could have ever done for me, getting me growing plants.
So where is the best place to get seeds and can I plant them anytime inside the greenhouse. I would love to use fresh herbs in my cooking. That is something that I have never done so it will be a new experience for me. But it sounds fun and I would love to have things around me that smell really nice.
Thanks,
Jesse
There are lots of good places for herb seeds, I'm sure, but Pinetree has a nice selection. I like them because they sell smaller packets of seed at correspondingly smaller prices (reasonable shipping too), making it affordable for home gardeners to grow a wider variety of plants. Of course, seed trading is a great way to be able to grow a wide variety of plants, also! I've started dechaffing some basil seeds -- Italian Genovese, Lemon, Lime, several small leafed compact varieties, hopefully Thai and Cinnamon and purple basils also if they didn't get too set back by the cold to finish ripening their seeds), and hopefully they'll be dry enough to send to you in a few weeks... please give me a nudge to remind me that you want them sooner than for spring planting. :-)
Here's the method (from Tom DeBaggio) that I use for starting basils from seed: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/589725/. That thread also has the method I use for starting peppers from seed, as well as a link to Carolyn's method of starting tomatoes (which I follow fairly religiously).
I think we're all going to have fun watching you have fun with your new greenhouse!
That all sounds great. I was wondering if I could start my own tomato plants from seed. I bought several plants last year but I never had any tomatos. My neighbor had the same problem. We had nice looking plants but no tomatos. So I would love to start mine from seed. Oh and peppers. We love banana peppers. And the red bell pepper too. This is going to be so much fun. I'm not sure when it is time to start sewing the seeds. You know a lot about that than I do. Just let me know and tell me how to do it and I will be right on my way to growing herbs and peppers and tomatos. Such fun!
Jesse
If you have any questions after reading those threads, LMK... :-)
BTW, do you want to try some potted mints in your greenhouse? I have some little starts that another trader decided she didn't want, and they're probably too small to be planted in the ground in fall, not enough time to settle in before winter... I could stuff them into my big mint pots, of course, but I could also send them along to you if you want them. I think there are a couple of Jim Westerfield hybrids plus of course I always have starts available of 'Kentucky Colonel' Spearmint & Chocolate Peppermint... LMK!
That all sounds so fun, growing mint in my greenhouse. I bet it would smell wonderful in there.
Jesse
Well, I was wrong about the little starts -- they must've been given away before we left, and I forgot... I thought I was seeing them in one of the trays, but that turned out to be Agastache! I'm losing it. But I've got the spearmint & peppermint that I mentioned running rampant, so I can get you some clumps of them... maybe not until next week when I'm (hopefully) more caught up... Please Dmail me to remind me, as I'm obviously not very organized at present.
Okay Critter. Thanks so much.
Jesse