If you’re looking for a relaxing activity that will bring you delicious, low-cost benefits, consider starting an herb garden. There’s nothing like munching on a dish full of home-grown herbs while you’re working, reading, watching TV or enjoying online casino real money gaming entertainment (wink wink) at SlotoCash Casino.
SlotoCash Casino invites you to check out how easy it is to grow your own herbs.
Inside or Outside?
Should you grow herbs inside or outside? Turns out that either option will do well, though wherever you plan to grow the herbs you’ll need to make sure that you have plenty of sun. There are some herbs that grow well in a shady area – cilantro, parsley, chervil, and tarragon come to mind – but in general, herbs do well in a sunny exposure, even for just part of the day.
If you don’t have a garden area you can make your own herb garden using window pots and flower pots that you place in your house next to a window or in hanging window pots. You’ll have to consider the soil – indoor herb growing demands potting soil which is loose and drains well. You should also be sure that your pots drain well and have trays underneath them to catch the water that drains out so that it can continue to moisten the soil when it starts to dry out.
Even if you have space for an outdoor garden you might want to consider having some of your herbs inside. The smell of fresh herbs is glorious, especially tea herbs like mint and lemongrass, and there’s nothing to perk up a room like the sight of greenery.
Selecting
When selecting the herbs that you want to grow, consider your climate. If, for instance, you live in a hot climate, you can grow almost anything year-round as long as you keep your herbs well-watered. Mint, chives, thyme, tarragon, parsley, lemon balm, and caraway will grow in a colder climate as well so if you have a change of seasons, you may want to intersperse the herbs that will die out after the summer like cilantro, dill, and basil with year-round herbs.
It’s also a good idea to get a copy of a chart that shows plant hardiness zones. A plant hardiness zone map guides growers and gardeners as they try to determine which plants are most likely to thrive in any given location. The map was created as a guide that you can consult to determine which plants grow well at the temperatures in your zone. The list of plants suggested for each zone includes lists of herbs and will tell you if the herb plants will grow in your zone during the summer, the winter, or both.
The easiest herbs to grow for a first-time herb gardener include tarragon, thyme, bay, sage, parsley, oregano, mint, dill, chives, and cilantro.
Watering
Finding the right watering strategy for your herb garden is tricky because some herbs like a lot of water and others prefer slightly moist soil. In addition, if you overwater some herbs, they can develop root rot which destroys the plant. Expert gardeners recommend that you water herbs according to each type of plant’s needs and not according to a random schedule.
Some herbs that like a lot of water include chervil, mint, and chives. When it’s hot and dry they should be watered once a day. Herbs like rosemary, thyme, and sage-like dryer soil and would need to be watered a few times a week in a hot, dry climate. Therefore, when you are planning out your herb garden, you might want to keep the water-loving plants together and the plants that prefer dryer soil together so that you can plan out the watering schedule for each group accordingly.
One suggestion is to check the top of the soil to see how dry it is. For the moisture-loving herbs, keep the soil moist. For plants that have wider root systems and therefore, don’t need so much water, water them when the soil feels extremely dry.
Soil
Potting soil is the best type of soil for growing herbs in window pots while rockier, sandier soil is good for garden herb growing. If you want to use commercial fertilizer, don’t fertilize more than once every 2 weeks or it overwhelms the plants. A better option for the delicate plants is to use compost – you can buy compost or make your own organic compost with peelings and other organic left-overs from your kitchen.
Tips
Some tips from experts about growing plants include:
- When you buy herb plants from a market or a commercial big-box store the plants have often been over-fertilized and had little natural sun. They will do well if you introduce them to the outdoors gradually…..keep them inside for the first week or so in the cooler evenings until they toughen up.
- Learn which herbs are annuals (basil, parsley) and which are perennials (most of the rest). That tells you what you can expect from your plant and plan accordingly.
- Harvest from the top down to help the herbs stay healthy and full. Pinch off the growing tips from the top of the plant so that they will bush out to the sides with dense, bushy growth, giving you a nice, full plant.
Now use those herbs - a nice basil sauce for pizza? Or some lemongrass tea? And sit down for a fun evening at SlotoCash casino - you deserve it!
