Homegrown Gardens - Your Garden

Ten Easy Herbs for the Kitchen

Herbs can take a dish from the simple to the sublime: a sprinkling of chives over an oven-baked potato, sprigs of rosemary on a roasted chicken, or a sprig of mint served with a scoop of sorbet. Buying fresh herbs at the grocery store can be both expensive and inconvenient. The best solution is to grow your favorite culinary herbs at home.

Fortunately, many of a cook's most useful herbs are easy to grow. Here's a list that will enhance many foods, are used fresh, and require little care in the garden:
   1. Chives
   2. Sage
   3. Rosemary
   4. Greek Oregano
   5. Mint
   6. Tarragon
   7. Thyme

All of these herbs are "perennial" herbs, meaning that they do not set seed and die each year, but continue growing from the same base each year. They typically have two seasons, one when they are actively producing new leaves (this is the best time to harvest) and one when they are in flower or reproducing (when leaves sometimes become bitter or twiggy).

Chives, which grow from small bulbs, need to be separated every two or three years. Rosemary and sage get shrubby, and benefit from regular pruning. The others tend to spread as ground covers, and need to be contained. All of them grow well in pots if you start with a good-quality potting soil, and keep them irrigated and fertilized (with either well-rotted compost or new potting soil) each spring.

No herb garden would be complete, however, without a few annual herbs. Annual herbs complete a full cycle of growth in one season (parsley is a biennial, meaning its cycle takes two years). Reserve a couple of planting pots for the following:
   8. Basil (there are many interesting varieties)
   9. Parsley (Italian or "flat-leaf" has more flavor than the ornamental "curly-leaf" variety)
   10. Dill

Annual herbs grow rapidly, and are done when they set seed. All three of these can be planted in pots or raised beds in late spring and enjoyed until late summer. If you pinch them back, you'll get denser growth and delay their blossoming. After they flower, you can compost the plants and re-use the pot again next spring, or replant with winter-growing herbs such as rosemary, sage, and thyme.

Designing with Edible Plants

As a designer, I am often asked by clients to include fruits and vegetables in an ornamental landscape. Typically this request comes from families who want to grow their own food but have little time for garden maintenance.

The challenge in growing many fruits and vegetables is that they require healthy soil, space to grow, trellises or cages for support when fruit grows heavy, careful pruning and seasonal pest management. In addition, some plants have a short harvest season, which means that all one’s efforts may go to waste if the fruit or plants aren’t harvested at the proper time.

The key to success is to choose easy-to-grow varieties, place them close to the kitchen, and give them the soil conditions they need, often by growing them in containers. Here are several simple ideas that work:

Plant dwarf fruit trees among shrubs or perennial flower borders.

Most common fruit trees—such as apples, pears, cherries, and peaches—can be purchased on rootstock that keeps them small. Because of their size, they can be planted directly into a flowering border, without creating too much shade or root competition with other plants. The flowers add beauty in the spring, the diversity of plants in the border helps to protect the trees from pests, and the fruit, if not harvested, drops harmlessly to the ground. The smaller-sized canopy is also an advantage for checking for pests, spraying, and harvesting fruit by hand. No ladders needed.

Raised planting boxes make weeding easier.

Put annual vegetables and herbs (such as tomatoes, eggplant, lettuces, parsley, and cilantro) in raised beds. The allure of growing one’s own tomatoes is often the inspiration for starting a backyard vegetable garden. But as many new gardeners learn, even a small plot of annual vegetables requires time—to prepare the soil, protect small seeds and seedlings from birds and other pests, and time—lots of time—to weed. By growing vegetables in raised beds or containers, all of these tasks become easier. I’ve made raised beds out of redwood, recycled plastic lumber, wine barrels, fiberglass and ceramic pots. Having the plants raised from ground level improves drainage (which is a problem in clay soils), gives the gardener more control over the soil, keeps weeds and other pests out, and makes harvesting more convenient. The trick is to use large enough containers to get an adequate soil depth (at least a foot for most annual vegetables, more for small fruit trees) and tie the pots or raised beds into an irrigation system (because drying out is the biggest cause for failure).

Herbs that spread aggressively can be planted in pots.

Set pots of spreading, perennial herbs (such as mints, oregano, and thyme) in pots, and sink them into flowerbeds. I learned the hard way with my first vegetable garden that some of the most beautiful easy-to-grow herbs were also aggressive ground covers and would soon take over the rest of the bed. Now I fill some of my more dilapidated pots with collections of mint (I like spearmint, peppermint, and chocolate mint), Mediterranean herbs (oregano and tarragon) and set them partially below the soil line at the front of a flower border. The pot keeps the plants nicely contained, and adding irrigation makes them maintenance free other than an occasional pruning.

Apple trees can be espaliered in narrow spaces.

Plant espaliered fruit trees (trees that have been pruned so that the branches grow in a single verticle plane) along a sunny fence or wall, or use a series of them in place of a built fence. Espaliered fruit trees may be harder to find, and a little pricier than the standard versions, but they can be one of the most unusual and graceful ways to grow fruit. They are also one of the most space efficient ways to add fruit to the garden, a real benefit for the small yards that now come standard with many tract homes and townhouses. A single espalier can be placed against a wall (with braces at either end and wires stretched across to tie the limbs to), or several espaliers can be planted in a line, and the tips tied to one another to create a living fence.

Start small and expand slowly.

The idea of growing one’s own food is seductive. but vegetables, herbs, and fruits are individual plants that require knowledge of cultivation and pruning, regular observation, and time to act when pests threaten or the harvest is ready. One mother of four, whose first ambitious garden was wildly successful, confessed to me that she was scaling back next year, because she didn’t have time. “I had no idea how much I had to stay on top of everything,” she said.

Like this busy mom, I have had my own challenges. A crop of bok choi on my deck has bolted because I waited too long to harvest it, and I almost lost the mail-order strawberries that I set out last spring because I never added them to my irrigation system.

On the other hand, I have enjoyed and made regular use of the pots of herbs that I occasionally snip for use in cooking stews and sauces (my favorites are rosemary, sage, thyme, and lemongrass), the mint that I throw into iced tea and lemonade in the summer, and the two citrus trees in large containers on my deck that I fertilize a couple of times each year. Their branches are laden with lemons and kumquats that we’ll be enjoying next December, and if I don’t harvest them right away, they’ll wait patiently until I have time.

~ articles and photos by Susan Wyche

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