Herb garden novice...

miss no stars

Sooo on a whim I decided to go ahead and have a herb garden (I and my mum have wanted one for some time now). I bought parsley, chives, mint, oregano and rosemary. I was thinking of making some sort of tray for them and leaving them in their pots outside the kitchen window (south facing but where they are is slightly shaded). That way if it got very cold they could come inside. Would this work or are the pots they're sold in generally too small for them long term?

The other option would be to put them in bigger pots in front of a south facing window where it's not shaded.

I was also thinking that , if needs be, the parsley, chives and mint could share a pot and the oregano and rosemary could share another one?

lordgoat

miss no stars wrote: »

Sooo on a whim I decided to go ahead and have a herb garden (I and my mum have wanted one for some time now). I bought parsley, chives, mint, oregano and rosemary. I was thinking of making some sort of tray for them and leaving them in their pots outside the kitchen window (south facing but where they are is slightly shaded). That way if it got very cold they could come inside. Would this work or are the pots they're sold in generally too small for them long term?

The other option would be to put them in bigger pots in front of a south facing window where it's not shaded.

I was also thinking that , if needs be, the parsley, chives and mint could share a pot and the oregano and rosemary could share another one?

Mint is very aggressive and if you think about how much of it you'll need for anything it really needs it's own container.

Chives grow really easily and quickly too.

Both of these are grand outdoors.

looksee

All of them will be happier outdoors than in, they are all hardy. They will probably need to go into bigger pots than the ones from the nursery, but not too big for the moment. Rosemary grows into quite a big bush, so it will need to go into at least a big pot, or even into the open ground eventually, for the moment though a bigger pot will be fine. Agree with lordgoat about mint, keep it in a pot on its own, it will soon outgrow it so take it out, take off some shoots and replant them and dispose of the rest. I think all of them - especially the oregano - would be happier in the non-shady spot. The parsley will most likely die off over the winter, it is usually treated as an annual, but I have had plants survive a couple of years. My experience is that they don't do that well indoors, but maybe that's just me!

miss no stars

Thanks for all the advice. Just wondering, is it still a bit early to have them outside or are they good to go? Thinking of getting one of these for the end of the back garden (herbs will be in front garden, beside kitchen door-window so they're to hand - kitchen is south facing). Would they grow a few tomatoes and strawberries or have I missed the boat for this year?

looksee

You don't need a greenhouse for strawberries, you can grow them in the garden or a big pot, they are completely hardy. Those plastic greenhouses can be more trouble than they are worth, I suspect ventilation might not be good enough in them, but I am not a tomato grower. You can get strawberry plants at the moment, tomatoes as plants will be another couple of weeks or so. If you buy a suitable variety you could grow them in a pot outside too.

If you got the herbs from a decent garden centre they should be ok outside, you might give them a bit of shelter if there is frost promised, since they will have been grown a bit protected, but otherwise they should be ok outside.

ezra_

Hello,

Apologies for the hijacking of the thread but I face a similar question!

I cook a fair bit so last summer I started growing my own herbs. Towards October, all of them died bar the parsley plant.

As we seem to be passed the freezing stage, I'm starting again. The herbs live outside on a 1st floor balcony, which is east-south east facing. Currently there is the surviving parsley, along with mint, basil, coriander and thyme. I want to add a couple of rosemary plants as well.

I have some questions:

1) I think I overwatered the past plants. How much watering should these guys be getting? I haven't touched the parsely since october and it is thriving now.

2) Rosemary seems to grow much slower than the rate at which I eat it, whereas the other plants seem to grow at a faster rate. This resulted in the rosemary being stunted all the time and dying off

3) Something kept eating the basil and there appeared to be aphids living in it. How do I protect it?

I would love to try grow other veg / chillis that I use. Is the aspect suitable for strawberries?


I can't seem to post an image / link to the image of the balcony and plants. Could a mod PM me and edit my post to include the image?

ezra_

One last thing - with the mint last year, it seemed that after a while (6 weeks or so), there were a large number of tiny leaves but few large ones. I imagine this is soemthing to do with the way I harvested it, but has anyone any advice about how not to repeat this?

buck8pe

Hi Ezra,

I grow a fair amount of herbs myself & here's what I know and what works for me:

grow rosemary in the ground or in a large pot (at least 2 gallons) if you plan to harvest it for cooking. It likes good drainage and a sunny aspect. If you're growing it in a pot, mix a bit of gravel through the soil to aid drainage and make sure the pot has a hole in the bottom. Feed around this time of the year with a dollop of compost or manure. It grows quite slowly and you should never cut into "old wood". If you look at the stem you'll see the top bit is greener than the bulk of the stem which will be browner in colour. Don't cut into the brown bit. Grow several pots if your demand outstrips supply.

There are several varieties of thyme. The one I have is a woody small leafed variety that likes lots and lots of sunshine and would prefer that the soil is a bit dry. It survived quite happily in an unheated gh over the winter where the temp dropped to just above 0C and it was watered once a week. It grows slowly and again, don't over harvest by cutting into old wood.

I grow mint in a decent sized pot (2 gallon). It dies back in the winter and has come on nicely in the last few weeks. Mint likes the soil to be damp (but not wet) and likes a good feed around this time of year. If you grow it in a large enough pot (or you grow several pots) you'll give the plant time to develop. Also, it responds well to a good dollop of homemade compost or manure. It does OK in partial shade.

Parsley is best grown in the ground in my experience. I raise the seeds in the spring and plant them out in the garden in May. You'll have parsley all the way through the year until Christmas (usually). The ones I've tried in pots never did well.

I grow Coriander in June/July/Aug outside in a medium sized pot. Be prepared to sow/plant Coriander successionally, because unless you're a miracle worker, it will bolt (run to seed).

I grow Basil from seed during the height of the summer only. It does not like being outside in the Irish climate, so I grow it in the gh with the toms. In keeping with its tropical ancestry, it like lots of heat, lots of sun and damp soil. Aphids and spider mites are always a problem with indoor/gh grown plants. I give infected plants a good hosing with soapy water every so often, but they'll come back. I notice that spider mites prefer pepper over tomato plants, so I grow a pepper as a sacrificial plant to keep them away from the rest (the rationale is that I rarely get good peppers, but I always get good toms). I hear SB Plant Invigorator is good for spider mites, etc, but I haven't tried it myself.

ezra_

Thanks for that!

miss no stars

The herbs are surviving outdoors. I decided to keep them in pots and got a nice holder for them in ikea: http://www.ikea.com/ie/en/catalog/products/30258673/
I added a lime thyme plant into the mix (smells gorgeous) and have potted that and the mint up so far and seem to have been successful in doing so. Fingers crossed they continue to survive!

I also got the cloche thingy and figured I'd try a couple of lettuces and tomatoes. If it doesn't work it's not the end of the world. Have been opening the door for a bit of air each evening on foot of looksee's comment about ventilation, but at the moment it's just lettuce in there and it hasn't been hugely warm since they went in so I guess I'll have to wait and see how it develops with more plants, heat and sunshine.

I'm attempting alpine strawberries from seed but everything I read online seems a touch negative about it. I only planted them today after 2 weeks in the freezer so I guess time will tell. Hopefully they'll be ready to fruit next year. In the mean time I think I'll get a few strawberry plants in a garden centre to tide us over for this year (have plans for some in hanging baskets and some in pots).

I have tomato seedlings growing on the windowsill at the moment. Planted about 50 seeds, 19 have sprouted so far (still have another day of sprouting left to go according to the packet). They're at the stage of having their first two leaves and a couple of them that sprouted first are growing their first proper leaves at the moment. I know it's pretty late in the season to be getting them going but it's still pretty cold, right? The thing I'm curious about is that when I get them bigger and ready to go outdoors fulltime, is what size container to use. I've seen a figure of 10 litres per plant mentioned but what sort of size is that in practice? I have some growing bags I was going to fill with compost, they're about 50-60cm in diameter and maybe 30cm deep. Would each of those support 2 tomato plants?

Hope you don't mind all the questions, just trying to get myself up and running with this from having had 2 plants in my whole life (1 died after a combination of a long gnat infection I couldn't get rid of, being trimmed and then repotted.. so basically trauma, the other survives).