Intro to Herb Gardening

Herb gardening is a wonderful way to grow various types of food for your kitchen, have certain types of natural medicine on hand, or simply enjoy the ease of growth and beauty herb plants often provide.

Most people grow herb gardens in their kitchen, to use as flavors in various foods and dishes they cook throughout the year. Many herbs though, can also be used in salads or teas, and since many herbs have very pleasant smells of their own, they can be used for general household air fresheners too.

Most herbs are quite easy to grow and they're perennial plants too, which means you can have blooming, producing plants for many years after planting just once. Herbs will often grow quite well in container gardens, or you can plant them straight into the ground outside too.

In fact, one favorite herb garden design is known as a wagon wheel. Some people go out and find actual wagon wheels to do this with, and it does make the design more attractive when you can. Simply lay a wagon wheel on the ground outside in the location you want your herbs to grow. A good choice is usually close to the kitchen, so you'll have salad and soup ingredients on hand as needed.

With your wagon wheel laid on the ground, you will simply plant a diferent herb into each "pie" slice of the wheel, bewtween the spokes. You can plant more than one type of herb in each space of course, depending on how much of any given kind you think you'll use throughout the year.

Another favorite way to plant herbs is in containers that will sit inside on the kitchen windowsill, or on the porch or patio. Herbs grow wonderfully in container gardens, and several things can be planted together to help improve growth and flavor if you'd like. You can also create herb container gardens based on usage instead. Plant an herb tea garden in one container for instance, an herbal soup garden into another container, and an herbal salad garden or medicine garden in containers of their own.

Some herbs are invasive though, so you must be careful when trying to plant them outside particularly. Mint for instance, will quickly over run almost any garden area you plant it in. It's best to plant mint into their own containers, and even if you plant to put them outside at some point, you should leave them in the container and plant the entire thing into the ground instead of putting the plant into the ground alone. This will help you be able to control the growth and expansion of the plant, and ensure it does not choke out other important plants you have growing.

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