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A Beginner’s Guide to a Kitchen Herb Garden

Ah, the flavor and aroma of garden fresh herbs. Biting into your food and having your taste buds coming alive with enjoyment is an event to be savored. Of course, dried herbs might be more appropriate on occasion, but they don’t have the essential oils of fresh herbs that make flavors come alive. For the sake of your taste buds, why not plant a kitchen herb garden. Even if you don’t have a green thumb and don’t have a vegetable garden, herbs are effortless to cultivate in the house and all you require to get going are a few pots, soil, plant food and a little water, sunshine and maintenance.

When making a kitchen herb garden, you need to realize that there are essentially two types of herbs - perennial and annual. Both annuals and perennials are great for interior herb gardening and a tasty supplement to any meal.

Annual herbs like basil, chamomile, chervil, cilantro, dill, marjoram and savory will grow for one season only before dying, however growing them indoors will likely prolong that time frame somewhat. Perennials that are well suited to a kitchen herb garden consist of chives, lavender, mint, rosemary, sage, tarragon and thyme. These varieties of herbs create new growth every year and the more you pinch off to use for cooking, the bigger and healthier these herbs will get.

Since annuals and perennials have different growing patterns, it may be smart to use separate pots for each kind. Therefore, after an annual herb eventually dies or has to be replaced, you won’t be interrupting the health and growth of a perennial that can flourish for many more seasons.

For the beginner, it’s a good idea to make use of seedlings instead of growing your herbs from seed. A lot of folks find it a bit tricky to start from scratch and get discouraged. Nevertheless once they develop into seedlings or young plants, they are very simple to care for. You can use a variety of different herbs in just one large container or use smaller separate pots and grow the herbs separately. It is completely up to your own preferences, although you have to keep in mind that annuals must be planted with other annuals and perennials will need to be grown apart.

The sort of container makes no difference providing there is a means of drainage at the bottom to prevent the earth from getting waterlogged. The location of the pots, conversely, does matter, and you should have a windowsill or some other place to situate your kitchen herb garden where it will get lots of sunshine. If you can provide the daylight and a bit of upkeep, you could quickly be using fresh herbs in your next meal and bringing your taste buds alive.