Starting from Seed

When you begin considering planting an herb garden, you probably wonder where you should start. Depending on the time of year, you may want to start at the beginning with the humble seed. Herb seeds are inexpensive and a packet of seeds can last you for several years. Keep in mind that you will need to plant more than you actually need, but you by no means need to plant the whole packet. To make it easy on yourself, you could buy a kit. Once the seeds are planted you can place them in a sunny window. However, if you’d like to do all the legwork, you can use flats that are designed to start seeds and professional planting mix. Then you might want to invest in some extra fluorescent lights to put the plants under, just in case you don’t have enough room in front of your window. No matter which way you’d like to go you can find the details on how to get started in these six blog posts.

• It’s Not Too Late to Start Your Herb Plants from Seed Indoors
• Winter Garden Guide: Seed Starting Indoors
• Starting an Herb Garden
• It Begins (Seed Starting)
• DIY Sustainable Garden: Starting with Seeds
• Seed Starting Indoors

Windowsill Garden

Creating an herb garden on your windowsill is a way that you can start out small without a large monetary investment or a lot of space. Herbs don’t automatically die off during the winter, so you will be able to continue using the herbs that are growing in your windowsill nearly all year round. Sometimes the herb doesn’t continue to flourish, so by mid-winter you may have to re-plant. Feel free to use almost any container to grow your herbs in, like the baby food jars mentioned in one of the next six blog articles.

• How to Make a Windowsill Herb Garden: 9 Easy Herbs to Grow
• Up-Cycling—Baby Food Jars to Windowsill Herb Planters
• Windowsill Herb Garden
• Windowsill Herb Garden
• In the Garden Thursdays: Mini Windowsill Herb Garden by Project Pendant
• Grow Organic Herbs on a Window-sill—Easily

Container Garden

If you’d like to go bigger than a small windowsill herb garden, but don’t have a large enough yard, you can plant your herbs in a container. Containers vary in size, and you may even consider using unusual containers, like the hanging shoe organizer that’s mentioned in one of the following blog entries. Make sure that the herbs grow well together if you are planting them in the same container. Some herbs are very invasive and will choke other plants out if grown in the same container. Mint is one such herb, and it’s so invasive that you wouldn’t want to plant it in your garden even if you had one because it would take over everything if given the chance. For more details on planting herbs in containers, take a look at these six blog entries.

• Into the Garden: Herb Gardens Spice Up Containers
• Three Small Herb Garden Ideas
• Container Herb Gardens Made Easy
• The Pot Spot: Container Herb Gardening
• Episode 288 Container Herb Gardening
• Planting a Container Herb Garden

Garden Plans

Deciding to plant an herb garden isn’t as simple as just rushing out to the greenhouse, buying some herbs and throwing them in the garden. Even if that works initially, your herbs won’t continue to flourish as they grow bigger. If you don’t want to have to tear everything out and start over, you should create a plan for your herb garden. Check out some interesting design plans for herb gardens in these six blog posts.

• Planning an Herb Garden—Part 1
• Planning an Herb Garden {Green in 365: Spring}
• Herb Garden Planner—Design Your Best Garden Ever
• How to Plan and Plant a Medicinal Herb Garden
• A Gentle Introduction to Herb Gardening…
• Herb Garden Design Plans: Essential Plants for a 21^st Century Healing Garden

Planting an Herb Garden

Once you decide that you want to plant your herb garden outside and you know where and how you would like it to look, you’re almost ready to get started. These blog articles will explain how to prepare the soil before you plant your first plant. Whether you started your plants from seed inside or you bought some bigger plants at the local greenhouse, you should definitely read these six blog entries before you start planting to avoid some common mistakes.

• Herb Garden Ideas: Making an Herb Garden
• Tips for Growing a Culinary Herb Garden
• How to Start an Outside Herb Garden
• Making an Herb Garden: Herbaceous Goodness (IV)
• How to Grow a Herb Garden
• Preparing an Herb Garden

Originally posted on Housekeeping.org.

Today, I am quite excited. My daughter called last week asking if I would come over to help her plan a small kitchen garden. Now, you know I love gardening, growing anything, this is not all that excites me today. This daughter, is the one who we had to cajole to come out to the garden and to help – enjoy the gardening process with her family. Which she never did. She retells and recalls her experience as endlessly deadheading. She would be happy when we’d free her from her task so she could do what she wanted to do.

So, when I got the call from her I couldn’t help but feel a sense of elation – hoping she’d come to enjoy the thrill of growing something for herself and develop a lifelong love of gardening.

She is an excellent cook, so she envisions herself stepping outside her patio clipping some herbs, picking some tomatoes and creating something wonderful in her kitchen. I hope to help her with that dream.

So, we’re starting small. Before meeting with her, I am in that sweet little cafe, Blackbird, that I shared with you before, a few clasic Victoria Magazines at my elbow – April is the perfect month – celebrating spring gardens.

I am opened to an article with contributing Editor Tovah Martin – oh, she is one of my favorite writers and garden enthusiasts. She is sharing ‘The Pleasure of a Potting Shed’.

“When seedlings are just starting, every gardener longs for a special place to tend them’. Tovah Martin

I truly would love to have a potting shed or greenhouse – hopefully that dream of mine will come to fruition some time this year!

But, it is so true – we carefully select the seeds, the soil etc. We clean out the pots and tenderly wait for the new birth of a plant that will give us the promise of flower or fruit. It truly is a thrilling process. I wonder and hope I can impart this to my daughter.

Tovah says of the potting shed, ‘don’t confuse it with a storage shed for garden equipment, it’s a work place, where one can garden happily even on rainy days’.

I think I need to help my daughter develop a place to tend and to care for her new seedlings and garden. So much hope – there’s love, joy and hope in a garden.

“Spring has come once more…lingering along through April and May in a succession of sweet, fresh, chill days, with pink sunsets and piracles of resurrection and growth”.
L.M. Montgomery “Anne of Green Gables”

I’m posting a wee bit early once again as I will be spending the majority of today with my daughter, garden planning!

Originally posted on A Delightsome Life.

• Container Gardening – If you’re lucky enough to have a patio or balcony, you can start a family gardening project by growing food in containers arranged around the available space. Limited or a complete lack of lawn space doesn’t have to hold you back, especially if your patio, porch or balcony receives an adequate amount of sunlight each day. Provided that they have proper drainage holes, almost any container you can think of can be used to grow edible plants, so don’t be hemmed in by the traditional planters available at your local home and garden store.
• Raised Beds – Small urban lawns often have poor soil, making them a less-than-ideal growing environment. If you’re plagued with moles, low-quality soil or other woes and still have available lawn space, consider investing in raised beds. They’ll allow you an enormous amount of control over the soil because you’ll be filling them yourself with purchased topsoil and fertilizing agents. Don’t let weak soil deter you from growing food and establishing a collective family hobby, just purchase or build your own raised beds!
• Community Gardening Programs – In many major metropolitan areas, city-dwellers with green thumbs come together and share a plot of land for a community gardening plan. Do a bit of research on the local level to determine what, if any, programs exist in your area. If you have trouble finding one it may even be worth your time to establish one yourself.
• Rooftop Gardens – Rooftop gardening is a popular option for those who have access to their own roofs and have obtained permission to plant there. Depending on the type of roof you have, there are several options for establishing a thriving ecosystem of edible plants right on your rooftop. If you’re lucky enough to have access to a flat, enclosed portion of a condo or apartment building rooftop, the area should even be safe enough for young children to come help, provided that you’re vigilant about supervision.
• Companion Planting – Some plants can have symbiotic relationships that allow them to flourish more when they’re sharing a container or planted close to one another than they would separately. Because companion planting allows you to place your plants closer together than you would otherwise, it’s a great way to make the most out of your available container, raised bed or small urban plot space. After you’ve decided what items you’d like to grow, it’s easy to determine which plants do better when they’re together.
• Square Foot Gardening – Square foot gardening is one of the single most effective ways to get the most from a small vegetable garden. You’ll need to use raised beds that are densely planted, well-composted and carefully maintained. The practice is especially well-suited to small, urban gardens where space is at a premium.
• Think Vertically – While the word “garden” may initially bring images of carefully plotted, well-spaced, horizontal rows to mind, this doesn’t always have to be the case. Consider inverted planters hung on hooks, rows of greenhouse-style shelving and other vertical planting methods to make the most of your space. For instance, canvas closet organizers designed for hanging over doors and holding shoes can make excellent compartmentalized, vertical herb gardens, as the porosity of the fabric allows for adequate drainage without being too flimsy to support the weight of soil and plants. Remember, you’re only limited by your imagination!

It’s wise to join an urban gardening co-op in your area, an online community or other gardening group for great space-saving, city-gardening techniques. These groups can be especially valuable for beginning gardeners, who are facing the challenge of urban gardening while also battling their lack of experience. When your children help to cultivate and maintain the family vegetable plot they’re more likely to be eager about eating the fruits of their labor, which can be a serious bonus for parents that struggle to get their children interested in healthy eating habits.

Originally posted on Summer Nanny Jobs.

I had such wonderful success using row covers on one bed last fall & winter that I decided it would be worth the investment to buy a few more to use this year.

Row covers are specially designed to allow sunlight and rain to filter through. I bought some from Gardeners.com and they protect plants down to 27 degree F. They also sell garden quilts that protect to 24 degrees F. If we get an especially cold winter I may also throw some plastic over my hoop houses at night and see how that works.

My husband made the hoop structure from pvc piping and rebar. The rebar goes in the ground and the pvc piping gets put on top of the rebar to form the hoop shape. Then the row covers are added on top and clamped onto the piping. I also weight the sides down with bricks/rocks.

This bed has some veggies that are still going strong from summer and some brussel sprouts and spinach that I just planted.

The peppers and eggplant probably have a few more weeks to go before I have to pull them. Then I’ll plant more brussel sprouts and maybe some bok choy if I can find it.

I still have lots of zinnias left and lots of bees and butterflys too.

The seating area my daughter and I built last year in the vegetable garden. I love this little area! Right across is the cutting garden raised bed and I love watching the birds, bees and butterflys in action.

The blueberry hut which protects our blueberries from birds. We have a couple of bushes on the outside of the vegetable garden and they are welcome to those berries – but not these!

Along this fence inside the veggie garden I have 1 of 2 grapevines, Nanking Cherry bushes, flowers and blackberries that are creeping in from the other side of the fence.

I still have tomatoes that are producing. I have to wait for these to be done and then I’ll plant this bed with leeks, swiss chard, beets and more lettuce.

This kale is from last year! I planted it last fall and we’ve been eating kale all summer. I cut some of it down to see what would happen and it looks like it’s sprouting new leaves. I didn’t know it would last so long as I’d never grown it before. I also planted some more kale in this bed and some radish and lettuce mix. There’s an artichoke in there that I never got anything from this year. Artichokes are perennial and produce after the second year so we’ll see!

This bed has bush beans and broccoli in it. On the other side are cherry tomatoes climbing the arbor.

This bed has red cabbage and collards.

This fall/winter I’m growing the following vegetables:

kale, swiss chard, garlic, lettuce mix, radishes, leeks, broccoli, beans, red cabbage, collards, brussel sprouts, beets, spinach and maybe celery if I can find space for it. I don’t think I have room for much more unless we build some more raised beds (which we have room for).

I’m excited to see how I do this winter! It would be amazing to be able to have a bunch of fresh organic vegetables from the garden…during winter!!

I’m working on a little garden area makeover for the rest of the week! I hope you all are having lovely weather as well.

Originally posted on A Cultivated Nest.