How to Grow Your Own Herb Garden

When most people think of gardens, they think of rows and rows of tomatoes or peppers or cucumbers in the backyard.  However, not everyone has a backyard big enough to grow produce in that quantity.  What most people do not realize, however, is that you can actually have a small scale garden in your yard.  In fact, you can have a small garden on an apartment balcony or even on a windowsill.  Of course not everything grows well indoors, but one type of plant that can be grown just about anywhere is herbs.

The best part about growing your own herb garden is that every cook needs herbs.  Unlike growing tomatoes or some other fruit or vegetable that maybe some people don’t even want to eat, every meal needs seasoning.  Of course, certain cooks prefer certain herbs over others.  For example, one may love to use cilantro in abundance, while another may prefer oregano over all others.  The good thing about herb gardening is that you can make as much of whatever kind of herb that you want. Since it will not take up a lot of space, you can even have several different kinds of herbs growing.  This makes it easier if you cannot make up your mind about what flavors you love the most.

The first thing that you need to do in order to make your herb garden is to find the best spot in your home to grow the garden.  You need to find a space where it won’t be disturbed.  This type of garden will be attractive to any cats you may have in the home, so you will need to make sure the garden is out of their reach.  You do not want your hard work in growing your herb garden to be thwarted by your hungry felines.

Perhaps the best place for an herb garden, if you have it, is an outdoor balcony or substantial window ledge where you can place a window box.  Like any other plants, sunshine is key to the growth of your herb garden, so you want to make sure that it gets enough light.  Of course if you live in an apartment that doesn’t get sunlight, you are going to have to use artificial light. There are expensive kits on the market where it has all the necessary light and soil set up and you just add the seeds and water it.  However, you do not have to pay this extra money to get such a kit.  You can do it yourself with ordinary lamps.  The kind of floor lamps that have bendable stems are great for this type of purpose because it allows you to manipulate the light from whatever direction is necessary for the plants to grow.

Keep in mind that not all herb plants will need the same amount of light or water, so you need to be careful if you are planting several types of herbs in one bed or pot.  A better option may be to have several different pots and have a different type of herb in each one.  This will ensure that each kind of plant is getting the right nutrients that it needs and you will not have to worry about one kind not growing properly.

Another important step is deciding what type of herbs you want to grow.  Think about what herbs you like to use most often in cooking and what your favorite recipes call for.  This will save you so much money because you will no longer have to buy those herbs often at the store.

Although it can sometimes seem like you are waiting forever for your tomato plants to grow, one great thing about herbs is that they grow very quickly.  It will not take long after planting to see them start to germinate.  Plus, because it is the plant itself that you are going to harvest, not some fruit on the plant, the herbs will be ready to use in no time. This is great because some people dislike gardening simply because it takes so long to get anything of value out of all the hard work that you have put into it.

Another cool thing about herb gardening is that you can easily switch to a different type of herb once you have harvested the first one.  This is great for those people who do not have a lot of space.  For example, you can harvest cilantro and then plant oregano and have it in just a few weeks ready to use.  The ease of switching the type of plant, without having to do anything drastic to the soil like you might do in regular fruit or vegetable garden, makes it much easier to grow herbs.

Not everyone has the green thumb, or space, necessary to make a lavish fruit and vegetable garden, but there is really no reason why everyone cannot take the little time and space needed to grown an herb garden, indoors or out.