Tips for Successful Herb Gardening

Herbs are not demanding plants, but some rules must be followed when growing them in order to ensure their success.

There are two kinds of herbs: those that adapted to the wind swept, sunny and dry cliffs of the Mediterranean shores, like rosemary, basil, thyme, sage, lavender, calendula and savory, which thrive in full sun and dry, limey soils, and those that enjoy shade, like parsley, mint, lemon balm, chives, dill and tarragon, which like a consistently moist soil and not too much sun exposure.
If you have a large area available for herb planting, it may be feasible to accommodate both growing conditions, but if not, the solution is to grow the moisture loving plants in pots, where you can control the shading and the moisture levels.

Some suggest that herbs grown in containers will benefit from a slow release organic fertilizer. In my experience herbs go crazy if you over feed them, and don’t forget that potting mix already has a fair amount of fertilizer mixed in, usually enough for three months, which pretty much takes care of the whole growing season, at least for annual herbs.

Don’t forget to clip off the flowers of basil and calendula before they go to seed, otherwise they’ll be done for the year. When October rolls around you can let the latter go to seed, to provide you with seedlings for the following year (calendulas are cold weather annuals and their seeds need chilling during winter in order to thrive). October is often their best season anyway, they bloom a lot more once the weather cools down.

If parsley makes it through the winter, like mine did, it will start forming inflorescences. Other biennial and perennial herbs, like lovage and dill, will also be happy to direct their energy into producing offspring. They will either grow umbels or foliage, not both, and it’s the gardener’s choice what to do about it.

Personally I enjoy seeing herbs go to seed, and the butterflies love their flowers too, they provide food and shelter for their caterpillars.