Starting a herb garden 22 May 2019 at 8:42AM edited 18 June 2019 at 8:55AM in Greenfingered MoneySaving 25 replies 8.8K views

DigForVictory

I'd cheat, & hit the supermarkets - Asda are doing a nice mix at 3 plants for a fiver at the moment and see how you go with plenty of drainage under a couple of growbags emptied into the sinks.

Meanwhile you can ask for a few seeds of whatever catches your eye off most gardeners & see if you can get them to germinate indoors and survive migration to a tub outdoors. It may not be the cold nights but the slugs that get them.
Says she with her supermarket basil relatively coddled in the kitchen - it isn't slugs that thing fears but the cries of "oooh bolognese!" which translates to plant will loose at least 10 good leaves...

Chives are almost as idiot proof & self perpetuating as mint but used a little less - they are bee magnets though & thus help Anything growing in a 100 yard radius.
Oregano & marjoram & sage - pick as many variants as you want - they all make lovely Italian food, and are pleasant to look out on.
Rosemary is a bossy plant - a long term survivor & somewhat prickly to eat - only if you seriously use it a lot cooking is it worth growing other than for its beauty.

Cheat like a card sharp to start with, & see how you go.

dllive

Thanks all.
The more I read about this the more it seems important to bring herbs indoors during winter months to keep them from dieing. Shlepping a belfast sink inside once a year will be back-breaking. Could I plant the herbs within their own containers in the belfast sink and then - in late autumn - dig out the pots and bring them inside? Is that an idea?

Apodemus

I’ve found my Belfast sink is good for things like mint and chives but probably not so great for the herbs that thrive in a rocky dry environment, like rosemary, oregano, thyme etc. Or things that like deep soil and grow a big tap-root like rocket.

Camomile

As somebody earlier mentioned, have a look at perennial and annual herbs. Unless you can find a good deal, buy some seeds of perennial herbs and sow them yourself, they will come up every year.

Davesnave

dllive wrote: »

Thanks all.
The more I read about this the more it seems important to bring herbs indoors during winter months to keep them from dieing. Shlepping a belfast sink inside once a year will be back-breaking. Could I plant the herbs within their own containers in the belfast sink and then - in late autumn - dig out the pots and bring them inside? Is that an idea?

Not really. The restriction of the pot won't help the plant grow in the long term, and some herbs have a naturally short life-cycle. There are relatively few herbs that die simply because of winter cold and/or wet. Something like coriander or basil is going to die anyway.

unrecordings

Davesnave wrote: »

Not really. The restriction of the pot won't help the plant grow in the long term, and some herbs have a naturally short life-cycle. There are relatively few herbs that die simply because of winter cold and/or wet. Something like coriander or basil is going to die anyway.

Thinking on from this you could have one sink with tender annuals/biennials in pots (like parsley, corriander etc) but fill the sink with pea gravel or bark mulch and seat the potted herbs within that for (IMHO) a pleasing effect. Then just hoik the pots out when the season is over. Use the same stuff as a surface mulch on the other sink containing hardy perennials - just a thought

dllive

unrecordings wrote: »

Thinking on from this you could have one sink with tender annuals/biennials in pots (like parsley, corriander etc) but fill the sink with pea gravel or bark mulch and seat the potted herbs within that for (IMHO) a pleasing effect. Then just hoik the pots out when the season is over. Use the same stuff as a surface mulch on the other sink containing hardy perennials - just a thought

Good thinking batman!

trailingspouse

And it may seem obvious - but only grow herbs that you're actually going to use!!



I bought a nice healthy looking basil plant at Aldi today for 48p.

Callie22

trailingspouse wrote: »

I bought a nice healthy looking basil plant at Aldi today for 48p.

Some of the best basil I ever grew came from Aldi (or Lidl, it was one of the discounters). I bought one pot, split it into six, stuck them on a sunny windowsill and ended up with far more basil than I was able to use.

omendata

Parsley, rosemary and chives i leave mine out all year on my kitchen window box and they always come back even after frost and ice.