One great advantage to herb gardening is that many herbs are perennial, so that once you have the garden established you will be able to harvest it for years. Here’s a few tips on getting a perennial herb garden established and producing for you.

Planting A Perennial Herb Garden

By Glory Lennon

Every accomplished cook and possibly the unaccomplished ones too, should have an herb garden. Yes, that’s my opinion but it also happens to be the right opinion even if you have no intention of cooking with the herbs. But why would you have an herb garden if you weren’t planning on using them to brighten your food? Have you never seen one? Herbs are beautiful. Bees buzz around them, butterflies flutter to them and deer can’t stand them. Good enough reasons for me. How about you? That’s what I thought. Let’s plant a perennial herb garden.

First step is deciding where to put the herb garden. This is a no-brainer if you’re a cook on the run. Right next to the kitchen door is best, hence the term kitchen garden. You want the herbs to be fresh whenever possible and jumping out the kitchen door snipping a few sprigs of Oregano, mint or chives just as you need them makes things move along so much nicer. Having herbs right in front of you as you plan a meal can give you inspiration. Hmm, what would that red snapper taste like with a sprinkling of lemon thyme? Only one way to find out. Try it, experiment, be adventurous! Your taste buds will love you.

So, how does one plant an herb garden? Not very differently from any other type of garden really. Herbs in general prefer slightly dry, poor soil and full sun. Rich soil has a tendency to make herbs go to flower more quickly which draws the flavor out of the leaves. You don’t want that. The flavors of the herbs becomes less intense so if you are planning to use them in cooking don’t worry about enriching the soil with organic matter as you would when planting flowers. Also add some sand before planting. This will make it drain better.

Once the sight is picked out and prepared, removing rocks, weeds and such, you’ll have to choose from hundreds of herbs. So, which ones? This depends entirely on you, your taste preferences and what you consider pretty. For instance, I dislike the taste of Rosemary so I never cook with it. On the other hand Rosemary is such a pretty, tender perennial plant that it would be a pity not to include it in every herb garden. It has a dense, bushy form that begs to be a topiary of some sort. The more you clip it, for use in cooking, the more bushy it becomes. It even can be over-wintered indoors if you live in cooler regions of the world and comes back better than ever in spring once replanted outside. In temperate zones it does fine, staying evergreen in most places.

I shall give you a list of the more common perennial herbs found in a typical kitchen garden. Pick and chose that which appeals to you. The first herb that comes to most people’s mind is arguably Mint. All mints, from the licorice, chocolate and apple flavored kinds to the candy cane peppermint are aggressive plants. So aggressive in fact that once planted you may never be rid of it and it will go everywhere and possibly choke out other plants. Believe me on this one.

“But I like mint” you may be saying. Truly, no one likes mint that much. If you want to grow mint despite all the warnings do so in a large, clay pot next to the herb garden to at least attempt to curb its wandering ways.

Oregano is an herb I love to use in cooking. I grow two kinds, your average mild Italian Oregano and Cuban Oregano. (I prefer the very strong Carribean type my mother grows in the Dominican Republic but this is very hard to come by where I live). These two plants look entirely different though the taste is similar with the Cuban being more pungent. I actually prefer the Cuban because it over-winters so well in the house to give me a constant supply when the other Oregano is dormant under the snow. The Italian Oregano grows 2-3 feet tall, and bushy. It has a tendency to flop over when it gets too tall. It also gets tiny purple flowers if you don’t continually snip it back. It can spread quickly and take over the garden unless trimmed often and it dries well. I take the entire plant, snipped almost at the root, place it in a paper bag and hang it to dry in the green house. In a few days it’s dry enough to run my hand over the branches to pull off the leaves. I place these loose leaves in air-tight canning jars for use in winter.

The Cuban grows more like a succulent so it doesn’t dry well.(It freezes fine). Snip a piece off and you can root it in water very easily. That’s how I grow new plants to give away. I gave one Cuban oregano plant to a friend and she told me it actually got her husband cooking for the first time. Anything I can do to help the busy working woman!

Lemon balm is another perennial herb which makes a wonderful, calming tea. It grows to be around 2 feet tall and if left to go to seed can produce many offspring. This can be dried or frozen for later use.

Chives is one of those plants I love more for the flowers which I pack into jars and fill with plain white vinegar to make pretty blushing vinegar with a slight oniony taste. This is great on salads. Woe to those who allow chives to go to seed however! You’ll be inundated with baby plants the following year. There are several different types of chives. I have curly, the white-flowered garlic chive and the usual purple flowered variety but there are many others.

Lemon thyme is a nice low-growing plant with purple flowers the bees love. It has a nice lemon scent when rubbed or stepped on. This one creeps along the ground forming a nice mat. Other varieties of Thyme have been used over the century as an antiseptic and decongestant. Heard of Vicks Vaporub? Guess what’s in it.

Lavender is great. Not only does it smell and look pretty but it is the perfect guest, a very polite plant, never becoming obnoxious. It does occasionally drop a seed or two making babies but this one I wish was a bit more spreading. If you continually pick the flowers it will grow more for you. Isn’t that considerate of it?

Tansy I grow for the wonderful lacy leaves which look great in flower arrangements. It has an unusual scent and grows rather tall, 3-4 feet. It has flat, button-shaped bright yellow flowers which look somewhat like the Ageratum. It supposedly has medicinal uses but as I don’t know them I’ll just continue to use Tansy leaves for bouquets.

There are some annual herbs like Chamomile and Caraway which tend to reseed reliably making them appear like perennials but they usually grow where they want and give no consideration to where you want them to grow. Just transplant them to where you want them and your herb garden will look great. I hope you will consider putting in an herb garden even if it’s just to smell and look at. The bees and butterflies will thank you.

Author Glory Lennon Resource: For more garden talk, funny short stories and romantic novel excerpts visit http://www.helium.com/users/32782

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