Starting herb garden

Hubby and I are getting ready to start a new herb garden. We have the area ready and we are just trying to decide on where to place everything. We have a ton of herbs and can't wait to get this project up and going. I was just wondering if y'all could give us some inspiration and maybe post some pictures of your herb gardens. Might help us decide on the placement of things.

Here are the newest herbs that we just picked up from our favorite garden center. Dill, coconut thyme, lime basil, lime thyme, and lemon balm.

I'll show you a few picks my herbs. They've been growing the garden since October. I doubt you'll find the layout inspirational but the plants are cool and I've always got fresh herbs to cook with. The first one is my dill with lots of yellow flowers. Fyi, for perspective - the plant's around 3' tall. To its left is a patch of small-leafed oregano, about 3'x3', above that is lemon basil. Hope you like the pics - Flip

OMG, your dill is huge! Love it though. Your garden looks huge. I can't wait to get all of our herbs in the ground. We have a ton of them but we have always kept them in pots. Thanks for sharing your pic!!

This time I'll spell 'pic' a little better - this is one of flat leaf parsley; it's about 2 1/2' across. To it's left is a large leaf basil that I just pruned waaay back. It's starting to regrow now.

One more - cilantro and thyme

ooohhh, don't have parsley. Darn have to go to the garden center for something new. Thanks for the excuse!!

Last one - curled parsley to the right, garlic chives, peppermint, chocolate mint, Mexican tarragon and marjoram. (Tomatoes, new beans and lettuce in back)

forgot the darn pic

Wow, never heard of garlic chives. That is right up my alley. We have chives and peppermint. Lost our chocolate mint over the winter and we just haven't had any luck with cilantro. Which is a shame because we buy it every week at the store. Thank you for sharing such great photos.

I don't have a camera but one thing I did in mine that I really like:

Got some wooden spoons at the cheapo store.
Got some apple barrel paints.
Painted each spoon a different color.
Labelled the spoon with a fat sharpie.
Used them to keep track of my mints and teach my daughter to read, like this:

Brown one said "chocolate mint"
Orange one said "Orange Mint"
Purple one said "Grape Mint"
Red one said "Apple Mint"
etc., etc.

I stuck them in the ground with the mint. Neat!

Oh love the spoon idea. That sounds cute and a great way to include your daughter. Thanks for sharing.

I just bought a lime mint and another called berries and cream. Anyone ever heard of these? All of my herbs are scattered throughout my flower beds. I like to have them mixed together.

I've just been to Lowes and Home Depot myself this weekend and picked up way way way too many herbs :) I bought three clay pots to hopefully fit them all into this week. Everything was 10% off so it seemed like a good time to start an herb garden again.

smiln32 - I haven't seen "berries and cream" anywhere yet or I would have it :) I haven't seen lime mint either...I did get spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint and apple mint...think that covers my mints :) What does it smell like?

HD and Lowes sure sell alot more herbs than I've seen since I had a garden about 3 years ago...lots and lots of cool stuff now!

Last year we had stones layed under our pergola. Suddenly the space right of the path looked like a great spot for culinary herbs! (house and kitchen are to the right)

I want to try my hand at roses, too. The thought of combing roses with herbs didn't seem unpleasant. So all fall I worked on that soil. I hauled away rocks, wild grape vine roots, trash burried in the soil, nails from remodeling. You name it! I added compost, peat, pebbles, gypsum, lime, and lately I've started trying plastic blankets to keep off the monsoons. I think it's almost ready (if the rain would EVER STOP). I'm planning to blend culinary herbs with the roses and toss in a couple clematis vines for fun. The area is about 16' deep along the picket fence and 12' wide along the house minus an area where the top of the farm cistern sits (might be a great location for an old hand operated cast iron working water pump if anybody has one they'd give me. (hint hint)

I'm getting about 10 roses next month from heirloom roses and have ordered cretan oregano, arp rosemary, manchurian baby's breath, giant allium, hops and rue. I've started poppies from seed (selected from the poppy seed coop here at Daves) and have another rosemany started from a cutting taken in my master gardener class. I'm planning to sow some annual herbs after I lay down flagstones (like those under the new pergola) to create a pathway toward the wall of the house and a window.

I'll try to get a picture tonight after I get home that shows the naked bed. For now, this is all I could find on my office PC to share. Rats!

This area gets sun starting about 10 am to sunset.

This message was edited Apr 6, 2005 3:37 PM

Wow you have been busy. Your yard is beautiful! I love flagstone.

Thanks K-17! A labor of Love!

We're not the same zone as you, so what grows for me may not work for you. Shoot, Cast caution to the wind! Just lump plants with similar watering needs and drainage needs near each other. Contain those mints! Tall to the back, short to the front.

I'm finding it necessary to make what I call "planting templates" for my on-paper design to fit my plants into this corner of the yard. These are circles drawn and then cut out of paper. I've been moving them around on my plan to FORCE me to properly space the plants F-A-R enough apart that the herbs don't get crowded when they're full grown. I'll recreate these itty bitty templates with big chunks of cardboard later so that I can center the baby herbs properly in the soil outdoors. It's soo impossible for me to "see" a 2"x3" baby as the 2'x4' monster that it will grow into! Must be some spacial deficiency in my brain.

Anyhoo, the plan is to be executed in just about 6 weeks! Eeee gad!

I really liked edging with wormwood last year...you can almost see the blue-green tops on the other side of the picket fence. Beautiful...and sooooo soft. Smells great, too!

Jumping in:

Darleen, it's gorgeous! You must tell me everything about the fence you have there: did you put it in? Is it wood? Where/how? must have a fence like that....

Zeppy,

Behind that fence....lies a story.

A few years ago I got a free dog...1/2 corgi and 1/2 Jack Russel. A mistake. Love him to death! But, being JR he has a false sense of his abilities. One day he tried to take down a car. He lost. Ended up with a $600 little doggie hip replacement. My free dog. Still the fastest little rat I've ever seen on 3 legs...only uses the bum leg to negotiate a 4-beat walk with...walking is rare.

So I thought a picket fence would be just the ticket to keep little Wiggle Biggles confined. LOL If you look closely you will see the "yard" side of the fence is lined with poulty fencing. The pickets are too wide to confine him! He can escape without breaking stride! It's that spacial deficiency of mine again!

Any way, it's stock picket fencing from the local lumber store. Comes in 8' widths. We hand dug the post holes, sank 10' posts (weren't sure of how hi to lob off the posts, so haven't done so yet) and then last year I started reinforcing the pickets with screws. The stuff is so cheaply made that the pickets were popping off because of the puny little nails the manufacturer used. DH fabricated the gate out of one of the sections.

Because our house is 1/2 log and 1/2 cedar and waaaay out in the country I opted to let the wood weather naturally. It's not painted. I think it's about 10 lengths long (80') by 6 wide (48').

Glad you like it. Makes a great backdrop for my flower borders. Wiggles uses the mulched beds in winter for his personal race tracks.

This message was edited Apr 6, 2005 4:38 PM

Well, it's a good story. And the high posts are, at least in this photo, visually appealing: maybe it's because they look like they're there for trellising or something...

Wiggles! Great name, especially for a Jack Russell. Those guys are nuts.

thanks!

He sure does what his name suggests! OK, here (I hope) is a picture taken tonight of the blank slate. Took the shot just before covering the dirt up with plastic...it's supposed to start raining AGAIN tonight. (sigh) Will it EVER stop???

And here, a Wiggle Biggles in full alert mode. Needed to add that here in this shot you can plainly see the poultry fencing "lining" to the picket fence. It nearly invisable from any distance.

This message was edited Apr 6, 2005 11:11 PM

With only 6 weeks until the roses arrive I'm beginning to feel some stress. We've only had one week without rain this year. Everything is waterlogged. I still want and need to bury a drainage pipe to carry the downspout water away from the area. I had hoped to dump one more load of compost into the bed and probably one more bale of peat after that. I'm having to resort to plastic covers every time the weatherman predecits more rain. That's like every 3 days or so! I know I'll do more damage than good working in soil if it's not dry enough. As you can see, the only thing green is the grass.

Darleen, I read your posts with great interest. Wiggle Biggles looks and sounds like a handful! (A highly entertaining one.)

Just wanted to say: I went to OU. I miss Athens. Good to see someone from those general parts on the boards. How are things? Besides rainy? ;>)

P.S. Tell us about the cat: looks like he/she's following Wiggle Biggles around the yard, like he/she thinks he/she's a dog! (My cat hangs with my dogs like that.) Was your intention to have matching pets?

Hi Dogzilla, OU Alum! Things are quite the same as you probably remember it. Coeds walk court street this spring in skimpy attire I only wish I were skinny enough to wear. Disgusting! LOL DH makes a point of having lunch at Donkey Coffee at least once a week to get his babe viewing fix. More tatoos probably than in our days, and tatoos in places I can't imagine having them! Parking downtown is always IMPOSSIBLE still. But it would seem the weather is beginning to dry out! Yahoo!

The cat in the photo is 1 yr old Sunny. I love orange cats! Have had several in my lifetime. I answered a plea from a co-worker who had kittens he needed to find homes for, one of which he said was a calico (my other love) and I took the calico??? plus her sister here. I think kitties are better socially adjusted when they grow up with other litter mates or youngsters. Buttons doesn't quite qualify as a calico...maybe more long-haired tourtise shell. Very Dark. No matter. Both are sweeties. LIving out as we do, each cat I own seems to stake out a zone of its own. Sunny likes the back yard, probably because it's not too far from the kitty food, in spite of harrassment by Wiggle Biggles!

K17, last week I "planted" 4 chimney liners which I am going to keep mints in. I'll run home tonight and get a picture of them for you. These worked very well at keeping mint under control in my other herb garden/weed patch which was too far away to monitor. I moved one oregano recently, and divided it into 3 plants & will get shots of them, too.

My husband mentioned stopping by Companion Plants to get basil seeds on the way home one night. Oh I know him, he'll get into Peter's greenhouse and go gaga and bring home herbs NOT on my planting list! And he'll do it too soon! I want to plant those baby rose bushes FIRST! And he has to build a trellis for Compassion!

Will edit this by adding a picture after I get home tonight.

Oh, I really like the idea of using chimney liners! How clever!

I've put off my formal herb garden another year, as I want to border it with a low stone wall, and that's not in this year's budget. But I've had it drawn out on paper for a while now! :-) Chimney pots would be ideal.... a nicer look than just burying bottomless plastic pots, for sure!

Meanwhile, I'll put a couple of thymes & oreganos into windowboxes or other deck containers so I can easily layer them & have lots of little plants for the herb garden next spring!

Can't wait to see your pics Darleen!!

Sunny looks just like an orange cat who lives under my house. He's not really my cat, but since he sort of came with the house, he sort of is. Only my neighbors feed him -- I refuse to admit I "own" this cat. I'm still in denial, even though he is referred to as "Yellow Cat."

To make this post relevant to the thread ;>): I planted some catnip for Yellow Cat, since I don't feed him. (Thought I'd give him a little buzz, though.) He threw a Kitty Catnip party and in 24 hours, the plant was completely destroyed, down to nubs in dirt. I think every cat on my street took a nibble!

My menagerie are all tuxedo pets: Two B & W boston terrors and one very fat spoiled B & W tomcat, named "gotmilk?" He HATES Yellow Cat, who isn't allowed inside the house because he does not match the other beasties or my furniture! Gotmilk? sits in the window and yowls at Yellow Cat, who just scurries under the house.

Thanks for the update on OU! I may have to send you some money: I need a new OU Alumni sticker on my car! (I can never find what I like online...)

K17, sounds like a great project. I love the planting area around the flagstone.

My herb garden is modest right now, but these are survivors of the winter and it's just starting to get warm, but there will be more herbs. There are iris and oriental lilies interspersed, and some crocosmia.

2 each curley and flat lead parsley, spearmint in a pot in the ground, arp rosemary, a pitiful sage but it survived, 2 kinds of thyme, french tarragon, one catnip and 3 chives. I planted garlic cloves all along the edge last fall but they must have been old, or it was too cold too soon.

Th reason I started watching this thread in the first place was so I'd remember to post my photos.

I went with a vertical theme and use these racks to keep bugs and slugs away. (The better to eat you with, my pretty!) I still have bugs occasionally and in the summer time, I abstain from the parsley, dill and fennel so the caterpillars can munch on them.

You can also see my little outdoor shower on the left. This is the only part of my backyard that's finished (and still under development, as you can see) and is known as The Bright Corner of Light. (The opposite corner is called The Dark Corner of Death because nothing grows there.)

This is more of a close up. Taking this picture prompted me to water. When the stevia are perked back up again, I'll take more shots and post them.

Dogzilla, I have few bugs. Haven't thought to leave parsley for caterpillars, and I don't yet have fennel or dill in this newish (last October) herb garden. I did save washed eggshells all wintwer while I was baking to have them to surround my hostas. I live on a creek so there are lots of slugs.

I love your descriptions of The Bright Corner of Light and The Dark Corner of Death LOL.

Something keeps eating my basil. I'm not sure what or who, but if I catch it, I'ma gonna smoosh it! ;>)

I can't stand the flavor of fennel, so I grow it for the cats.

Darius, Love your rocks. Are they home grown? Did they come with your place? Can you send some to Dogzilla? I too once had catmint. I finally planted some between a few very large lumpy rocks so that my cats wouldn't be able to hurt the crowns of the plants. Seems to have worked. But that was a long time ago.

Dogzilla, what a great idea to put a plant stand outside! Duh. I can't tell you how many times I've wished for an ideaa to create more vertical interest. Your set up has given me an idea. I'm going to keep my eyes open for plant stands that will hold up well out of doors. Thanks for showing us! You want an Alumni sticker? You got it! I have to go downtown next Saturday to get my roots dyed. What kind are you wanting?

And as promised, pictures of the chimney liners-mint corrals.

Another view

And a final view. Hope this isn't going overboard?

Darleen, I've always thought chimney liners make great planters. I have 6 very old drain tiles, rectangular about 4" x 6" and about 8" long that I plant small succulents in outside.

The rocks are from this place. We're on a rocky creek and everywhere I dig there are more rocks. Most of the smaller ones are smooth, water-worn.

LOL. Sure, an alumni sticker would be great. Just find one of those pressure stickers -- not the kind that's actually a STICKER on the back. The green is peeling off mine.

Thanks.

Hello ... I'm new to DG and am growing herbs on my deck, so they have no rhyme or reason as to their placement. I just stick a pot wherever I can find a spot! Right now I'm growing Rosemary, sweet basil, thyme 2 types of oregano, Italian parsley and some very sick dill which I started from seeds as my plants drown from all the rain we've had. Any suggestions on growing dill would sure help as we love the stuff. When my plants get just a little bit of height to them ... they fall over. Any suggestions?

Welcome to DG, IO1...

I've only grown dill in the ground. Most of the others should do well in pots although oregano can put out some roots (and it's perennial, not an annual like basil, nor biennial like parsley).

My suggestion: mound some soil over the fallen part of the dill. After a little time, it will root and you will have two dill plants! Fennel can also be propagated this way.

I've found that dill does better for me in the winter and not so much in the summer. I'm not sure where you are in GA, but if you're south of Macon, you might try again in the fall.