Herbal Gardening

If you tell someone that you are a gardener, they almost immediate want to know if you grow flowers or vegetables. They are always trying to figure out how big something can be. How big is your flower garden? How many kinds of lettuce are you growing? How many acres do you grow? It’s nice to be able to challenge their way of thinking. People tend to over look the smallest of the garden products – the herbs.

Herbs are not flashy things to grow. Most of them do not flower at all. They are just green and brown shrubs sitting in soil. Some people even have a difficult time distinguishing between them and the weeds that surround them. But the benefit of herbs lies beneath that surface.

Have you ever smelled fresh oregano growing in a window box just outside of the kitchen? You may never go back to eating the dried and process herbs you buy at the supermarket. There are many ways to achieve great tasting food, almost nothing that compares to grabbing a fresh pinch of basil and stirring it into some simmering tomato sauce. It may be an 89-cent can of prepackaged processed spaghetti sauce, but that pinch of fresh herbs turns it into an Italian delicacy.

Herbs are easy to grow also. It’s nice to have a large area to spread out and plant every different kind of herb imaginable. These gardeners can have a wide-range of herbs available at almost any time. They are probably the type who dries them and packages them for use throughout the winter.

While this is a nice goal, sometimes planting a garden is not always practical – particularly for those living in dorms, apartments, or condos where there is no ground space available. This is where the windowsill herb garden helps. It is simple to purchase a small window box that hangs right outside. Put in some nutrient rich potting soil and you are ready to go.

Most herbs are robust and difficult to kill. They are meant to grow back even after you take a pinch of a leaf or stem. As a result they are easy to grow and make a great starter for people interested in beginning gardening.

And as with every plant, be sure to talk to the greenhouse employees or consult growers in your area to find what herbs work best. Let them know what you have available for space and they can suggest what works the best. You also will want to consult books on herbs or talk to experts who know plants. Since you are actually ingesting something that you are growing, please make sure that you are eating the right part of the plant in the right way. There’s too much information out there to risk getting sick from eating the wrong thing.

So the next time you get an urge to stretch your green thumb or spice up your cooking, reach for the herb garden and enjoy the products of your labor.