Tea Herb Gardening
Herbal teas are often brewed from familiar plants you can grow in your garden. Tea herb gardening is no more difficult than growing culinary herbs. To enjoy fresh tea from herbs such as mint, simply dig them up in late summer and grow them in pots indoors under proper lighting. Perennial herbs left to overwinter outdoors prefer a thick covering of mulch to help them survive the cold.
Dried flowers from either German chamomile or Roman chamomile will give a gentle-flavored tea. Harvest the button-like mature flowers of this annual and dry them on a screen. Prolific as all daisy-like flowers, chamomile can be invasive if the flowers are not harvested. Chamomile will reseed itself once it is established in the garden. Chamomile likes full sun and well-drained soil.
Sage tea can be made from either fresh-picked sage leaves or you can dry the leaves. Drying makes the flavor more pungent. Sage prefers well-drained soil rich in nitrogen and plenty of sun, though in hotter planting zones it might like partial shade to avoid the heat. Prune after flowering; sage flowers in mid-summer. Indoors, sage requires strong direct light.
More well-known as a culinary spice, fennel can be used for tea. Officially a perennial, fennel dies off in colder climates. Multiple plantings will help extend the harvest; sow seeds in the early spring and make a second planting in mid-summer. Harvest the feathery leaves and the seeds to brew a licorice-flavored tea.
Lemon verbena will survive the winter outdoors in warmer climates, but for most growing hardiness zones in the Unites States, you’ll need to move the plant inside. Verbena likes well-drained light soil and full sun. Lemon balm is a member of the mint family and may or may not overwinter outside; it likes shade and water like many other mints.
All members of the mint family are familiar tea herb gardening plants – peppermint, spearmint, orange mint, wintergreen, menthol, catnip, as well as bee balm and lemon balm. Moist shaded soils are best for mint. Mint is notoriously invasive, so consider growing it in pots or in sunken containers. If you live in a colder zone, in the late summer you can move mints indoors to enjoy their fresh flavor all year. Use leaves fresh or dried for tea. Bee balm is a perennial mint plant native to the eastern U.S. and Canada. Use the bright, spiky flowers and the leaves for a tea with citrus and spice accents.
The mature ovaries of the rose are called rose hips. High in vitamin C, rose hips make a nutritious tea. All roses make hips, but Rosa rugosa is commonly used for tea. If you plan to harvest rose hips for tea, do not use pesticides on the plant. When the hips turn bright red, harvest them. Slice the skin of the hips around the outside to speed drying. You can release more of the nutrients and flavor if you crush the dried rose hip before you make tea.
Do some research to discover which part of your herbs make the best tea. For some it will be the bark or twigs, for others the leaves, seeds, flowers, or even roots. Harvest herbs on a sunny morning after the dew has dried. Perennial herbs should not be disturbed one month prior to the first frost but annuals can be harvested up until the frost arrives. Tea herb gardening can be a soothing, healthy experience.
Three Keys to Growing a Mini Herb Garden
Three Keys to Growing a Mini Herb Garden
The idea of having tiny versions of every herb at your fingertips is appealing. Pruning and pinching will keep plants compact and bushy, but some herbs are meant to grow three feet tall. A mini herb garden is a collection of herbs grown in a compact space. Confining the herbs to a small planting bed or to a collection of pots will make your herb garden miniature. Potted herbs grow well both indoors and out with the right amounts of light, water and proper soil.
Without available yard space for an in-ground herb garden, you can grow a mini herb garden in pots right on your deck or patio or balcony. Lining the available space with several pots, one herb plant per pot is one way, but no law says you can’t plant more than one plant in the same pot. Herbs with similar sunlight and water needs will do just fine planted together. Choose a pot with a wide mouth for this mini garden. Basil, chives and parsley will grow well in the same pot. Strawberry jars with their multiple openings work very well for mini herb gardens and take very little space.
Windowsill gardens indoors will limit the size of pots. Choose pots 4 inches or smaller. The containers can match or not-it’s up to you. Place the potted herbs side by side in a single tray for a unified look. Pots can be plastic, terra cotta, or another material, as long as they have a drainage hole. Be sure your indoor herbs receive enough light. Grow-lights can be found at any garden store to supplement limited sunlight.
Single pots lined up side by side in a single layer will work or you can save space by stacking your pots. Mini herb garden kits online can include stackable, triangular pots that make a tower similar to a strawberry jar. Right on your kitchen counter in one square foot of space you can have up to fifteen fresh herbs.
For shade-loving herbs such as Cuban oregano, borage, parsley, chives, and mint family members, choose an east or north-facing window. The cooler temperatures will allow the soil to stay more moist.
You can use single pots for indoor mini herb gardens, or you can find stackable sets of miniature pots. Stackable pots can be found in online kits, creating a small tower with a footprint no larger than that of a strawberry jar.
Whether grown indoors or outdoors, your mini herb garden requires a well-draining potting soil mix to thrive. You’ll want to begin with a commercial potting mix. Add either one part sand to three parts potting mix or one part perlite to two parts potting mix. Read the growing directions carefully for each herb. Many herbs like the water to drain completely away from their pot rather than sitting in a puddle in their saucer. You can place stones or other spacers between the bottom of the pot and the saucer to allow room for the water to drain clear.
Hydroponic herb growing kits can be found online. You won’t have to get your hands dirty at all or put up with gnats or other bugs that might hatch in potted plants. In a hydroponics unit, the seeds sprout in a spongy felt-like material. The plant grows up toward a grow light or sunlight while the roots travel down into a nutrient-infused water chamber. Table-top size and even smaller windowsill versions are out there. Get creative and have fun with your mini herb garden!
Pictures of Herbs
Browse various pictures of herbs in different environments including indoors, outdoors, in pots, in windowsills, closeups, and more.
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Pictures of Herbs Slideshow
Fresh Herb Gardening
Fresh herb gardening brings many benefits to the gardener. You can purchase herbs and spices in jars and cans or purchase them fresh, and consuming fresh herbs is rarely bad for you. But growing them yourself touches corners of your life that buying someone else’s work will not.
Growing your own fresh herbs will save you money. You could purchase fresh herbs from grocery or specialty stores, but if you’ve ever looked at prices, you know this is an expensive way to spice a dish. Invest in the right plants and fertilizer, plan your garden for the best use of available sunlight, and tend them carefully, and you’ll earn back any investment in the cost savings over purchasing your fresh herbs.
Fresh herbs bring more potent flavor to your table immediately after harvest. A brand new jar of dried or preserved spices is strong, but the longer the jar is open, the more taste the herbs lose. Not using your fresh herbs right away? You can keep them for up to a week by placing the cut stems in a glass of water in the refrigerator, just like fresh flowers. Place a loose plastic bag over the top of the herb bundle to hold in humidity, and snip off pieces as needed.
Whether you grow your herbs in an outdoor garden or choose one of many ways to grow herbs indoors, your herbs will be available for you to use any time you want. All herbs need to thrive is light, well-drained soil, a minimum of five hours of direct sunlight-or 10 hours of fluorescent grow-lighting-and proper watering. Some herb kits are designed with hydroponic growing equipment and techniques, meaning you never get dirt under your nails.
Another benefit of fresh herb gardening is the startling variety of herbs you can grow. Oregano alone has eight common culinary varieties. Exploring the subtleties of flavor found in different cultivars of familiar herbs will take you miles beyond the supermarket spice rack.
Processed herbs and spices lose the potency of healing properties over time. Fresh herbs contain antioxidants and other compounds in active states. Teas and tinctures for medicinal use are more powerful when made from fresh herbs. When measuring herbs for spicing a dish, you will want to use three times the amount of fresh herbs that you would use of dried. Remember that dried herbs lose the potency of their flavor over time, so be prepared for a stronger taste than you are used to. One tablespoon of fresh herb is fairly close to one teaspoon of freshly unpackaged dried herb.
Branch out to find multiple uses for your fresh herbs: aside from trimming leaves for cooking or adding to salads, you can integrate herbs into massage oil, use them to fragrance linens or a room. Some herbs work well as a natural, organic insect repellant.
Beyond the usefulness off herbs, gardening itself is a healthy pursuit. You can burn 120 calories with only 30 minutes of gardening activity. Raking, pruning, digging and other garden chores constitute moderate exercise. Working in the fresh air and sunshine caring for living plants is not only healthy but also relaxing and a great way to release stress.
Most Productive Herb Garden Designs
When planning the design of your herb garden, you can research what others have done. Dozens of herb garden designs are displayed in books and magazines you can find at garden centers or the library. For productive herb garden design, you will see some common patterns.
Herb gardens are attractive even when scattered and disorganized, but for efficient harvesting of herbs, the productive herb garden needs a planned design. Walkways, compact-sized planting beds, and planned sun/shade exposure are three commonalities in herb garden designs.
The layout of your herb garden or multiple beds in your garden should take into account your need to harvest the herbs. Walkways or pathways between beds or within a larger garden plot will allow you to reach each herb. Paths can be grass, steppable groundcover plants, stone, gravel, wood-any flat surface wide enough to allow you to avoid damaging one plant to reach another.
Keep planting beds small. Planting herbs within the easy reach of your arm will allow you to reach all your herbs from your pathways without stepping on or between the plants. Circular plots, small squares, or rows of narrow rectangles are great shapes for your design. A potted herb garden makes keeping herbs within easy reach even easier.
Grouping herbs in the same bed according to their use will increase productivity. Place crafting herbs in one bed, medicinal herbs in another, culinary in a third, for example. Potted herbs can also be grouped and arranged so that all the spices are together or the flowers for crafting are grouped together.
Within your herb beds, you can further divide the herbs into how they are to be used. For example, marjoram, basil, lemon verbena, and peppermint area all medicinal herbs used for stomach upset. Group them together and you won’t need to reach far to get what you need. Creating an Italian dinner? If you’ve designed your culinary herb plot to group Italian spice herbs together, gathering the spices you need will be a snap.
Some herbs will need more sunlight than others. Ideal conditions often include 4 to 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. You can still plant your shade-loving herbs in a bed with sun-loving herbs if you arrange them so that taller, sun-loving herbs block the sunlight. Sunflowers are ideal for this-they love to hog the sunlight, and will protect more delicate leaves from the direct rays if planted on the southern side.
How will you be using your herbs? Large-scale productions such as commercial lavender farms need to simplify problems of harvest, weeding and pruning. Heavy landscaping cloth laid in rows, with small cut-outs for each plant, takes care of all three problems at once. Each plant is distanced from its neighbor to allow the farmer pathways between them. Planning and measuring before you plant, and knowing the needs of individual herbs, will increase your herb garden’s productivity no matter what herbs you grow.
