Starting a herb garden - what to grow?

[Vinga]

I would like to start my own herb garden this year, but I'm not sure what to grow.
I would like to grow herbs that can be used for a variety of things, like cooking, essential oils, tea both medicinal and recreational etc, not so much for ritual magick.
I don't want to go crazy and take on too much to start with, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for some basic but versatile herbs. Preferably something I can find at the local nursery, because I don't know of any 'speciality' stores around here. :)
Oh, and if anyone has a book recommendation it'd be greatly appreciated. I used to have this great book with hundreds of herbs and their uses, but you know the story - lent it to a friend and never saw it again.

Thanks in advance!

[Lavender]

Hi Vinga,

The good ol' kitchen standby's are oregano, basil, mint, chives, & rosemary. But the list can go on & on depending on your tastes. Oregano is very easy & is a perenial & will come back every year & dries well to use over the winter. Basil can be a bit trickier. I find that Basil does best in containers & pots. They like warm but not HOT. I grow mine in a pot on a sunny window sill. Mint can take over your garden if you're not careful. Any kind of mint...spearmint, peppermint,....(again, the list is endless) can be made into teas using fresh or dried leaves. Definitely grow mint in a pot or container. Chives are great & easy too. They come back every year & you can divide up the clumps to give away. The flower tops of the chives are great in salads. For a variety, try garlic chives. Delicious! You can also put chives in a pot to grow inside over winter as well. I've got rosemary outside & inside the house. If you're growing it outside, it likes sun. Grow it near the house to give it some protection over winter. In the late fall, you would want to protect your rosemary by putting mulch around the base & wrapping it with a bit of burlap or clear plastic...leave the top open. Not only is rosemary good in cooking but is great as a hair rinse too.

If I have to give up all my herb books & only allow to keep just one, it would be "The Herb Book" by John Lust. The one I have is from 1974 :) & I still use it often. I've seen that he has a revised edition out & thinking I might splurge & get it.

[Amora]

Scott Cunninghams Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs is a book that I have been unable to live without. Another is the Wicca Garden, I'm unsure of the author but it gives some great tips on how to start a garden. I attempted to grow some herbs last year but killed them all off...so now I'm on a mission as well!!

Best of luck with your garden:) :) :)

[Maggie]

Originally posted by Vinga
I would like to start my own herb garden this year, but I'm not sure what to grow.
I would like to grow herbs that can be used for a variety of things, like cooking, essential oils, tea both medicinal and recreational etc, not so much for ritual magick.
I don't want to go crazy and take on too much to start with, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for some basic but versatile herbs. Preferably something I can find at the local nursery, because I don't know of any 'speciality' stores around here. :)
Oh, and if anyone has a book recommendation it'd be greatly appreciated. I used to have this great book with hundreds of herbs and their uses, but you know the story - lent it to a friend and never saw it again.

Thanks in advance!



The very first thing you might do is look at the place where you intend to plant this garden. Most herbs (although not all) need full sun at least 6 hours a day. Then look at the soil and see what kind you've got. Many (although again, not all) herbs like rather gritty, quick draining soil, while others like soil with more substance to it. Then, think about what you would really use herbs for initially--if you like to cook, try the sage, thyme, rosemary, chives etc. If you prefer to use herbs in crafts like potpourri, then lavander, scented geraniums and other fragrant types are the way to go. Teas are another whole thing and you might want to drop by your library and check the herbal medicines books, rather than ones on magical or ritual uses.


Regards,

Maggie

[Vinga]

Thanks for the ideas :). I stopped by Chapters today and I found The Herb Book, it was only $11 so I picked it up, and Wildchild I can definitely see why you like it so much. It's a lot like the book I used to have, only this one seem to have even more info on even more herbs.
I've also been thinking about which location in my garden would be best sun-wise, and the soil is mostly clay all over the backyard...and it has to be where the dog can't get at it ;). Perhaps I should start with a few large pots. Then I can move them around as the sun :sunny: moves and if we finally find a new house I can just bring them with me when we move.

[Lavender]

Hi Vinga,

Pots are a great way to start. Go with a size that would give you at least 8" of dirt. I have herbs & plants that moved each time with us. Whenever we moved, I would dig up a chunk, if not the whole plant, & pop it in a pot. I've promised everyone that this will be home for a LONG time. I've even taken rose bushes with me...it was stipulated in our sales agreement. The realtor thought I was nuts. :) Some of my herbs have been around longer than my son! :)

I wish that you guys are close by...I was out this morning dividing up my herbs & weeding out seedlings that I don't need. They're all in little pots ready to go & I don't have any more homes for them. My friends & family run away screaming when they see me come at them.

[Celtic_Angel]

Originally posted by Wildchild
Mint can take over your garden if you're not careful. Any kind of mint...spearmint, peppermint,....(again, the list is endless) can be made into teas using fresh or dried leaves. Definitely grow mint in a pot or container.


Good advice when dealing with mint! I do recommend having some peppermint in a container. It helps with belly aches, but is the only kind of mint that does.

C_A

[mythril]

Hi,
It is the start of winter where i live and im just wondering if the herbs that i have planted will die.
I have mint, sage, rosemary, thyme , lavendar ,parsley, elder so far.

anyone know? :)

[Silver Venus]

Hiya all!! Ive really enjoyed reading all your great posts! and great advice ~ thanks! Im just staring out with herbs mysekf and have just planted a few culinary herbs in a Moon urn on the New Moon. I plan to buy some flowering herbs this weekend for my magic Moon urn for the Full Moon!
Vinga, Im sorry that I cant recommend any books, I just wanting to thank you for starting this thread! and I know the lending story only all too well :D
Id say ~ how cold does it get where you are Mythril? But as far as I know ~ and thats not much! Id say that as long as you keep an eye out and clear snow frost from them ~ or cover them with plastic bags when its really brrrr cold!! they will survive... then again I just a beginner so was I sprouting a load of rubish?? :D

[Lavender]

Originally posted by mythril
Hi,
It is the start of winter where i live and im just wondering if the herbs that i have planted will die.
I have mint, sage, rosemary, thyme , lavendar ,parsley, elder so far.

anyone know? :)

Hi Mythril,

Not sure how cold your winters are there but I would mulch the plants over winter. You do that by covering the base of the plants with leaves & grass clippings & such. If it gets pretty cold where you are, you can surround the plants with a small frame & cover with plastic but leave the tops open. You can dig up a chunk of your mint, sage, parsley & thyme to bring indoors too for winter use.

[Dragonette]

my dotages are thyme, rosemary, mint... dried mint from the garden makes tea better than any ol' teabag from the store... delicious. strawberries, raspberries, perhaps some lemon verbena (yum) and lamb's-quarters (yum).

[Dragonette]

and lavender. as for strawberries, not only will you get strawberries but the young leaves make good tea as well. chives? yum! and onion, that's always good.... the list goes on and on... parsley is good, yes, and if you possibly can some type of mushroom.
we used to go camping a lot, and once dad went with out us- a guy thing- down to Rockford, Illinois. he came back with a large plastic bag just FULL of chanterelles. they were growing wild there! dad told us that everybody was picking them to take home to their families... another time we went to the same place, this time with all of us, we found literal beds of some type of purple-flowering mint. just lovely. every time we got bored we would just go over and be lazy on a bed of mint. of course, there were ticks, but oh well ;)

[reanna]

where abouts in BC are you???

I am in the Fraser Valley. :)

[Lavender]

I'm in Coquitlam...we're almost neighbours! :)

[mythril]

ta, i will try one of those ways.

[Angel]

I was just about to ask this EXACT question!! now I don't have to!! This advice is good!!

[Dragonette]

and sorrel. mmmmmmm yum

[Yvonne Belisle]

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[Yvonne Belisle]

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[Yvonne Belisle]

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[mythril]

Ok, my herb garden is doing verry well, i am going to extend it this weekend a couple of metres or so.

I was also thinking of making a water feature of some sort with small cannals that run in between the herbs.
A kind of fairy garden thingy :)

every day when i get home from work, i visit my little green friends and extend love to them, it seems that they really respond in that not one of them has died, and they have been growing for about 6 months now without a problem.

They look wonderful.

[mythril]

Hey ive an idea, why dont we all take photos of our gardens as they are now and post them up? :)

[Ball-Bhreac Ròn]

:rolleyes: our gardens a barren wasteland at the moment, not only cuz its winter, but also cuz we've just moved and the people who lived there before us had small children who played on the grass and in the flowerbeds (?!) so much that its all completely bare...roll on summer and I'll be sorting that out ;)

[Lavender]

That's ok. You'll be amazed at what you can do with just a little. The garden at our last house was just rocks. It was on a reclaimed patch of river rocks. You might have to bring in some top soil if it's too rocky. Wait & see what's out there.

[Demeter]

Mythril, unless your winters are very cold, most of your plants should survive. They will die back to the ground, you'll clip the dead dried parts off, and they will come back in the spring. The lavender and rosemary are the only ones that are only semi-hardy. Do you have a zone system there for figuring out which plants will survive? I'm in Zone 6 US and rosemary dies over the winter, but it survives in Zones 7-10, I think. Your parsley is a biennial and the second year the leaf growth is secondary to its flowering growth. Most people grow parsley as an annual, planting new every year, because the leaves are better the first year.

I just moved into a new house too, and unfortunately the back yard is heavily shaded by rampant Rose of Sharon and an oak tree. I'm going to have to pull the Rose of Sharon out completely in order to get any sunlight. The back yard is also to the north of the house, so that's more shade. The front yard is very small, so I may just pull out all the sprawly bushes that are there now and put in some perennials and decorative herbs and a few veggies in the front! The variegated types have very pretty foliage. There are some weeds growing in the lawn that are actually useful herbs, so those I will carefully transplant and keep. (And they will probably promptly die.) Then I can have a lettuce garden in the back, where the shade may keep them from bolting so quickly in the summer.

I'm thinking about getting some of that Trex plastic wood to build raised bed boxes. You can saw it and nail it and it won't rot like regular wood and it won't put poisons in the ground like pressure-treated wood. And it's recycled.

I know from experience that plastic kiddie pools with holes punched in the bottom for drainage make great little round beds, just the right size! (If you don't mind little pink fishies or duckies all over your bed border -- but you could stack stones or bricks to hide that.) Fill them with a mix of soil, compost and vermiculite, and your plants will be very happy.

[Yvonne Belisle]

I am container gardening this year since there are too many rocks and too much clay to really grow anything. The kiddie pool idea is great and i think i may just have to try that! It would keep rabbits from digging in too! Now so long as the deer don't think i am providing them a buffet!

[Yvonne Belisle]

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