My husband's veggie garden has done so well this year that I
plan to encourage him to keep it going every year. This
leaves me with a small square near the patio where I used to
grow a few tomatoes. I think I would like to try to grow
some herbs there. What advice do you have? I would like
perennials or self seeders that love sun and are easy to
care for. Which ones to plant and when?

Thanks

Hi Sandie,

We have a small herb garden which has done very well with very little
effort on my part. My favorites include:

Chives. I prefer the onion flavored chives (Allium
schoenoprasium) over garlic. Here is a little article on chives
http://www.tripleoaks.com/articles/chives.html. Sunday breakfast,
eggs w/ fresh chives. Yum.

Rosemary. There are many different varieties. I wish I knew
which variety I have b/c it is incredibly hardy. We had centerpieces
made of herbs at our wedding reception (with an invitation for guests to
bring the plants home), and the rosemary in our
garden is from one of the centerpieces. Rosemary however will
get quite large and take up a lot of room in the garden. I love that it
is evergreen and creates year round beauty, as well as providing a
culinary herb. This is the herb I use the least
in cooking b/c of the strong flavor and woody nature.

Greek Oregano Also a hardy perennial, which will spread rapidly. 3
years ago I planted one tiny little plant in a 3 inch pot from the
farmer's market. The oregano now covers around 3 square feet. But we
love pizza, and we love oregano on our pizza.

Sweet Basil Okay, this is an annual, but it's worth it to buy a
small cheap pot of it at a nursery or farmer's market (I've tried to
grow it from seed, but find it takes too much effort. I'd rather spend
$2 on a 3 inch pot ready to go). The plants grow quickly
and easily in the summer. You must plant it after the
last frost. Basil does not like a lot of water, mine did really well
last year in the drought, but got off to a slow start this year due to
all the rain. Still, my basil is now quite large. I always make
huge batches of pesto, pour the pesto into ice
cube trays, and freeze my pesto cubes to use year round. Homemade pesto
is so easy to make, and so darn good--it is worth it to plant this
annual. It is said, by gardening gurus, that planting
basil near tomatoes can actually improve the flavor of the
tomato.

Parsley A bi-annual. I find curled parsley easier to grow
than flat leaf. I don't use parsley that often in cooking. I like
having a small amount of it in my garden for certain recipes. I'd
rather snip a little parsley from my garden that buy a huge bunch of it
in the grocery store that will go to waste
(well to compost..not really waste).

Thyme Super easy to grow. Fairly rapid spreader. Great
addition to so many dishes. Evergreen, but will winter over a bit.

Mint Vigorous grower, some people stay away from it b/c
it can take over your garden.. You could plant it in a container, and
keep the container near your other herbs, or even bury the container in
the ground. I don't contain my mint, and some day
I may regret this decision, but after 3 years, it really hasn't
taken too much space. I love using mint in ice tea, mint juleps, and
as a surprise flavor in spaghetti sauce. I like Spearmint.


Except for the basil, all of the above herbs could really be planted at
any time, you would just have to baby them a little to keep them going
if you planted them now. I would guess the optimal time to plant would
be early spring, which is also when you would have the best selection of
herbs at farmer's markets or nurseries, after a year, they should be
able to manage by themselves (mine do). Basil is the only one of the
above herbs that you absolutely have to plant at a certain time: after
the last frost. I usually wait until the first week of May to plant mine.

I went to Big Bloomer's this May and they had a great selection of cheap
herbs, much better prices than the farmer's markets or nurseries, or the
local home improv. stores.

Happy gardening and cooking!
Heidi





Sandie Hudson wrote:

My husband's veggie garden has done so well this year that I
plan to encourage him to keep it going every year. This
leaves me with a small square near the patio where I used to
grow a few tomatoes. I think I would like to try to grow
some herbs there. What advice do you have? I would like
perennials or self seeders that love sun and are easy to
care for. Which ones to plant and when?

Thanks

We put in a bunch of herbs last year, and nearly all of them made it
through the winter with flying colors. The pineapple sage was gorgeous
when it bloomed in late summer - big showy red flower spikes on top of
2-3 foot stalks.

MAC

In article , Heidi wrote:
-=-=-=-=-=-
Sweet Basil Okay, this is an annual, but it's worth it to buy a
small cheap pot of it at a nursery or farmer's market (I've tried to
grow it from seed, but find it takes too much effort. I'd rather spend
$2 on a 3 inch pot ready to go). The plants grow quickly
and easily in the summer. You must plant it after the
last frost. Basil does not like a lot of water, mine did really well
last year in the drought, but got off to a slow start this year due to
all the rain. Still, my basil is now quite large. I always make
huge batches of pesto, pour the pesto into ice
cube trays, and freeze my pesto cubes to use year round. Homemade pesto
is so easy to make, and so darn good--it is worth it to plant this
annual. It is said, by gardening gurus, that planting
basil near tomatoes can actually improve the flavor of the
tomato.

If you let basil go to seed it will come back year after year (as I found out this year
when I had sweet basil, Thai basil and lemon basil volunteers). I also had cilantro
volunteers and some dill volunteers.

Cheers
KJ
--
---
NC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival at the Carolina Theatre in Durham
August 6-10, 2003 | www.carolinatheatre.org/ncglff
http://www.ibiblio.org/kelly -=*= kelly @ unc.edu

Sandie,

I could not tell from your post whether you were talking about herbs in
containers or in the ground?

The reason I ask is because I had very poor results when I tried growing
chives in a window box and rosemary & sage in pots, but the plants
absolutely thrived when I "liberated" them by transplanting them in my
veggie garden. Truthfully, if I had known how well they'd do out there, I
would have been more careful about the location & spacing.

Also, it's not a perennial, but you just gotta grow basil! (However, if you
want to actually *cook* with it, don't bother with the small-leafed
"ornamental" basil -- the plant was beautifully rounded, and it tasted
like basil, but life is too short to deal with the teeny leaves!)

As for growing basil from seed, in the past I had a pack of seeds that I
never got around to starting inside; the directions said the seed could be
put directly into the garden. I figured I had nothing much to lose by doing
that -- to my amazement, those plants not only caught up to the basil
planted as seedlings, they were actually *bigger*! Another poster mentioned
letting basil go to seed; if I ever figure out where I'd like some to come
up, I'll refrain from dead-heading one plant and see what happens.

I've pretty much given up on growing parsley, as I have lots of swallowtail
butterflies around, and their caterpillars can be voracious when it comes to
parsley. (Some people plant parsley strictly for the caterpillars; last
time I tried planting several parsley plants in different locations, but the
voles killed the plants in less than 24 hours!)

Anne Lurie
NE Raleigh




"Sandie Hudson" wrote in message
.com...
My husband's veggie garden has done so well this year that I
plan to encourage him to keep it going every year. This
leaves me with a small square near the patio where I used to
grow a few tomatoes. I think I would like to try to grow
some herbs there. What advice do you have? I would like
perennials or self seeders that love sun and are easy to
care for. Which ones to plant and when?

Thanks

"Anne Lurie" wrote in message
.com...
I could not tell from your post whether you were talking about herbs in
containers or in the ground?

ground