Introducing Herbs into your Garden with a Container

Happy Mother’s Day!  At least once a year I go back to my roots and remind myself why I cannot seem to exist without herbs.  I do not mean why I am a gardener.  That is genetic inheritance.  My grandparents on my mother’s side were farmers.  My grandfather on my father’s side was a flower gardener.  My father’s mother is the one who helped me to plant my first garden with pansies, bleeding hearts, columbine and coral bells among other plants.  So the gardening part was well ingrained before I was 10.  As a result Mother’s Day which is close to the frost free day for my area -- when outdoor gardening risks diminish, is a weekend I love to garden.

Herb gardening is uniquely mine in my family.  I really like to look at flower gardens, but except for a few old fashioned perennials I never grew many flowers.  Instead I prefer greenery, so I think that is why the herbs work so well for me.  And I find it fun to experiment with the vast flavors that herbs provide.  That keeps the scientist hidden inside me happy too!

When you cook with herbs it is not really just about adding fresh or dried chopped herbs to a dish.  It is much more subtle to make an herbal vinegar with fresh herbs and use it to craft a salad dressing or a marinade.  Or produce an herbal butter that you dot over plain steamed vegetables to bring out their true nature.

All of these suggestions can be done with a few herbs in pots on the patio.  So let’s discuss container gardening with herbs!

The most important thing to keep in mind when container gardening is that  this type of herb garden needs some attention in watering and timely pruning. And remember when placing plants in a container is to choose those with similar needs.  Herbs like marjoram, oregano, sage and thyme  all love lots of sun and need good drainage can all be placed together.  Any type of lettuce can be grown with others, but basil does best with other basil. Herbs can be cross-planted, so let basil and oregano share a pot.  Cilantro and dill with their light leaves look good together. When planting dill or cilantro, sew seed rather than purchasing plants.  In the hot months these will bolt (go to seed) so you can preserve a summer harvest by dropping a few new seed into the pot every two weeks.

If you like to combine herbs in containers, remember to place taller growers in the center and lower growers on the outside edges.  Thyme is a great companion in the pot to Basil, Dill and Tarragon.  Tarragon which can get 3 feet tall in the ground will be a much smaller grower in a pot, so remember to plan accordingly.  When choosing perennials for the container, try dwarf varieties or hybrids which generally have all the flavor and scent of the original cultivar, but often have a more decorative leaf and generally a smaller growing habit.

Planting your Containers

After deciding what herbs you would like to plant, you want to go and get the following supplies:

• Containers
• Potting Mix / Soil Mix
• Herb Seeds and/or herb seedlings
• Spade
• Watering can
• Base filler

A soil mix in the pots high in organic matter is a must.  I create my own blend rather than buying something that may not last the season.  5 parts top soil; 2 parts cool compost or peat moss; 1 part course (not play) sand.  The sand increases the oxygen and the compost provides the organic matter.  Later in the season I use a mix of 50% top soil and 50% compost to top off the pots as the soil sinks.  This adds more nutrients and replaces what is lost to erosion.

Select pots with holes in the bottom or sides, so excess water can escape.

Choose large pots, such as 12- to 24-inch-diameter planters. Choose plastic or composition planters instead of clay, which allow less water to evaporate from the soil.

If you are just starting out, you might want to use herb seedlings as they require less work than growing your herbs from seeds.

Once you have gathered all your supplies together, it's time to start creating your container herb garden!

Place a base filler in the bottom of the pot to aid drainage.  You can use Styrofoam peanuts, crushed aluminum cans, broken clay pots, or anything similar.  About an inch or so in the bottom is great.  Then fill your container with soil mix.  The amount of soil you put in depends on whether you use seeds or seedling to plant your herb garden. In general, if you are using seeds, fill your container to about 1 inch from the rim so that you will have room to cover your seeds with a little additional soil.

Always check the instructions on the seed packet as they will usually give you more detail on how best to plant your seeds. If you are using seedlings on the other hand, you want to cover the base of your container with only a few inches of soil so that you can fit the seedlings in. When you have arranged all your seedlings in the container you can fill the spaces around them with more soil.

As with seeds, you also want to follow the instructions that accompany your seedlings. If your seedlings to do come supplies with instructions, you can try looking up the information on the internet. These instructions are important for telling you the best growing conditions for your herbs. You might need to move your containers around to give them access to sufficient sunlight to help them grow.

Finally when you are done, give your containers a good watering! And of course do not forget to water your herb garden over the coming days.

Follow these steps and it shouldn’t be long before you have a beautiful and bountiful container herb garden just brimming with delicious fresh herbs!

Using the Herbs

There are simple ways to start using herbs.  Like individual sprigs of rosemary over broiled lamb chops;  Or adding ribbons of basil to your completed spaghetti to give it a burse of bright flavor.  Or mixing chopped fresh chives into butter whipped with sour cream for a topping on any kind of potatoes that makes them a special treat.  These can make using herbs simple, fast and give you a new taste on the palette. 

If your window or patio herbs start to get tall, cut them.  Fresh herbs will keep in the refrigerator for several days with the stems wrapped in a damp paper towel and popped into a zip seal bag.  If longer storage is needed, chopped them and place the herbs in an ice cube tray, cover them with water and freeze.  When you cook soup, stews, chili or sauces, just drop in a cube.  If you like many, pop dinner into the crock-pot, remember herbs lose flavor during long cooking times, so just drop in a few cubes when you get home and by the time you are ready to eat the fresh dynamic of the herbs will be released  just by reaching into the freezer.

Just a few last tips:

1. Chose containers with trays or get trays and fill them with pebbles.  Herbs do not like to have wet feet, but they also like to have a bit of water to draw on in the heat of the day.  Placing the pot in a tray will keep you from watering twice during the hot days of summer.
2. Don't let your herbs flower, unless you want to look at rather than eat them.  Herb flavors change when they create flowers, so cut those flower heads off to preserve the best flavors for cooking and tea.
3. Throughout the growing season pinch back the ends of the branches to promote more branching and the production of more leaves to harvest.  Check daily for dryness and water when t he soil is dry about 1" depth.  Do not overwater and provide good drainage.
4. To test soil for dryness, poke your finger into the soil: If it feels dry to a depth of one inch in a 12 inch pot and two inches in a 24 or larger pot, water.
   
   

 

Improvements and Changes to Backyard Patch Herbs

Covid has taken a lot out of me.  I am sure you can relate.  I did not realize how much I need to interact with others to boost my own creativity.  I miss just talking randomly about herbs.  Comments on my blog aren’t doing it, discussions on Facebook aren’t doing it.  I just need to have spontaneous questions. Everything seems to take me longer to do: Making herb blends, printing labels, packing items.  I can spend hours and lose track of time.

I have tried in this down time of quarantine to learn how to edit videos, so far I have not finished one of them.

I did clean and organize the cabinets in the herb room, scanned a pile of recipes (still not much of a dent in the collection.) I organized my craft room and cleaned out my part of the garage. Seriously, I never do these things, much to my husband’s chagrin.

Working during Quarantine

I am working from home, all of my jobs are now in one building.  This could be part of my problem I never escape.  My living room is now my office, my dining room was for teaching via zoom, my basement is for blending herbs.  The only escape I have is the garden. Which is probably why I have been spending so much time there.  Neglecting things I should be doing, like writing my monthly newsletter.

The weeds have never been more tamed.  But I have not grown one herb or flower that was new, except those two biennials I planted last year.

The Silver Dollar Plant flowered wonderfully and made these great branches when I harvested the seed.

 

The hollyhocks turned out to be black (I had no idea from the gift seeds I got.) When the sun shown on the plants they actually looked deep purple.  I liked the color difference from morning to evening.

 

But beyond this I have not been very creative in the garden. 

We do have cats again.  It was hard being on lockdown with no pets so we contacted a fostering agency called Mutts and Meows and got a pair of young cats.  Aren’t they adorable?

 

I have not written an email to my membership in months, mostly because even finding the energy to post to the blog has been hard, a newsletter is time consuming and I have had ½ a dozen false starts.

There are few events to promote, no talks to support with info and no new herbs to share.  And since we are not traveling, I do not have any cool places for you to visit right now.  That makes finding newsletter topics difficult.  So finally when the weather turned cooler this week I sat down with my journal and a pen and a view of these….

 

Zinnia, Cosmos, calendula and on the arbor is hops, just about to ripen.  All I need is a couple days of sun and I will have a huge hops harvest.  Might need to learn to brew beer!

In my journal I wrote down product ideas, garden ideas, newsletter topics, recipe ideas and finally after all that writing I decided a few things.

I created a DIY product - DIY Refrigerator Pickles. Doing things at home being popular these days made it fun to make kits for making refrigerator pickles. They have everything needed except vinegar, water and the veggies.  And as long as the veggies are fresh, they can come from a garden or from the store or farmers market.  In 24 hours one can have pickles without having to know how to can.  

If one wanted to know how to can, my Canning Basics class is coming up in October with District 214.  It will be virtual, so you don't need to leave home.  I am also showing how to make vinegar, sugar, honey and other items infused with herbs in a special three-part class called INFUSION which is happening starting September 16th at 7 PM via Zoom.

Time for Change

I have decided after making all my notes and watching YouTube videos on growing my business that things need to change. Don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing to complain about.  I still have my part time day job, I am still teaching in a limited capacity and Backyard Patch Herbs did very well during lock down, so I unlike many I could still pay the rent and pay bills.  My soup mixes and baking products were a big hit as were my gift baskets.  But I realized I need to simplify. The wide variety of products available all the time is terribly time consuming to make, even if I don’t make things ahead and only do on-demand crafting, it is still a lot of work. 

·        So I have decided to rework my product line and my email strategy, as well as what I do on Social Media. Here is the short list: 

• My newsletter will be once every three weeks.  Not quite twice a month, but not once a month either. I will add more fun to the newsletter and cover more things, but in different ways, this way I can create useful content more often than before in less time.  
• I will share garden images; 
• easy and challenging recipes for the beginner and the adventuresome cooks; 
• share more information of what I enjoy from my herb and gardening friends with links to websites you may have overlooked; 
• book reviews on garden and herb topics; 
• sharing the herb and gardening wisdom of my herby friends. 
• If you want to join the newsletter visit this link.
• I have enjoyed choosing recipes on a theme to post each month on the blog (this month the theme is quiche), so I will be doing more of that, expanding to include recipes with photos on Instagram. In other words, you get to see some of my hubby’s tasty creations.
• I will also be changing my product line.  I plan to add some special items that will be DIY type creations that are available seasonally and will allow folks to enjoy herbs in new and different ways.
• I will reduce my herb blends to those that are most popular and with the exception of my Italian Dressing and Marinade I will be retiring all blends that have salt. Stock up now they will be gone on December 31, 2020. If you want to vote on your favorite herb mixes, as there are 45 - I will be holding a vote of some sort in the newsletter and on Facebook in the coming weeks.
• Although I love to experiment with Herb teas, I am going to reduce the offerings to 10 - 12 teas, those being my most popular. Other teas will come and go seasonally in much the way I have begun offering Holiday only teas for Halloween and the Winter Holidays.  Those of you who love a tea will always be able to order it, just remember the name and email and can send it.
• I am going to offer subscription services, like a CSA style box as well as tea of the month and herb blends of the month. This is where I will share my new experiments rather than adding them instantly to my product line as I have in the past.
• I will continue to offer remote programs on Zoom as well as in-person programs, but will work to add programs to a Youtube channel (I think I will trade herbs for editing assistance.) And eventually create an herb cooking class on a platform like Teachable where folks can learn at their own speed.

If there is anything you think I should or should not do in the coming times?  Any products you might like to see?  All suggestions will be considered.

 

Book Review - Herb Gardening from the Ground Up

I picked this book up from the Librarian-curated shelves at the public library in town and was surprised at how perfect it was even for a seasoned gardener like me.  It was the drawings they included on propagation that drew me into the book.  What kept be there was the personable writing style and the depth of information.

Sometimes books on herb growing can be so elementary, giving you the top 10 herbs and growing tips and a few recipes, but his book was not in that class at all.  Written by Sal Gilbertie and Larry Sheehan, Herb Gardening from the Ground Up (2012: Ten Speed Press: Berkeley, CA) takes the approach that knowing each herb's life cycle, climate requirements, growth pattern, and means of propagation will tell you more about how and where to use them in the garden than knowing which names belong to which herbs.  I found that to be a refreshing take on herb gardening. 

Sal Gilbertie is the proprietor of  Gilberties Herb Gardens of Westport, Connecticut which was established in 1922 by his grandfather.  It is among the largest herb nurseries in the US.  At one time he gave herb advice to Martha Stewart and has appeared on her show Martha Stewart Living.  Co-author Larry Sheehan has a long list of writing credits that include newspapers, magazines, television documentaries, and dozens of books including the best-selling Living with Dogs and The Sporting Life.  Together they authored another book on high yield gardening I have not had a chance to look at.

Under the heading Four Facts of Herb Life they spend a good 20 pages going over the life cycle, climate, growth patterns (with illustrations by Lauren Jarrett that show you the spread and height of plants after the first years,) and propagation techniques divided by style of plant.  They presented the clearest and most concise definitions of annual, perennial, and biennial I have found anywhere.

The book spends another 20 pages discussing ways to plant and propagate the herbs in your first garden.  Then this book departs from others by updating what to do and look for in the second year and third year of a culinary garden as well as giving some great garden plans with plant lists. One of my favorites was the Breakfast Garden.  My hubby was intrigued by the Fish and Game Garden.

As all good herb books should, there is a focus on details of various individual herbs too.  They did not just give a top ten list, however, instead they chose 38 different herbs to detail (on more than 50 pages) and the theme gardens presented even had me thinking about how to incorporate them into my landscape.  They divide the herbs into groups with similar growth habits and soil and climate needs and then give a tutorial on how best to propagate within each group as well as other group related suggestions.  It is a unique approach to gardening with herbs that I have never seen so well articulated.  We all generally understand that dividing a mint is the best way to go, but to have a group of spreading perennials with Mint, Tarragon and Oregano as examples in which he details how to treat them all the same when propagating is exceptionally easy to understand and perfectly true!

The book has an index which is a must for me with any reference book on gardening.  I cannot possibly remember where to find what I know was in that book without an index and this one has a fine one.  Before the index, however are some must-have pieces of information including a "Start from scratch schedule" and a "harvesting and storing guide."  Those alone make the book a treasure trove of useful information. 

Herb Gardening from the Ground Up is a book I quickly added to my own library and I was ever so thankful to that Librarian at the Elmhurst Public Library for showcasing something I might not have taken a second look at if I passed it on the gardening shelves.