Herb garden!

[mousme]

I think I need to get myself a green man (or green woman? I think those exist too... if not, they should) icon.

Anyway, I stopped off at Canadian Tire today and got myself a bunch of herb seeds and pots in which to plant them. I bought thyme, rosemary, sweet basil, sweet marjoram, oregano, and mint. I also neatly labelled all my pots, so that I can tell them apart while they all still look like, well, dirt in a pot.

I am very excited. I should be seeing growth anywhere from a week to twenty-one days from now, and by the time summer is out the herbs will be nearly fully grown, supposing I don't manage to kill them all in the meantime.

Does anyone have any idea if and how I might grow these for seed at one point? I'd love to start a huge unstoppable colony of herbs. It's just that I know diddly-squat about how to go about instigating the circle of life, here.

I didn't get all the herbs I wanted. I may go back in search of parsley and sage (so I can have a proper Scarborough Fair mix), but I think we have sage in the garden already if memory serves. Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of herbs I could grow, once I find a suitable spot for them. Right now my only problem is that I lack horizontal storage space with adequate lighting. I may sacrifice the position of honour by the window that I've given to the cat tree up until now, so that my herbs will grow. I'm sure the cats will understand.

Comments

[karine.livejournal.com]

One of the things to do is re-seed once in a while, and fertilize your soil. I'm currently growing chives (perennials) and cilantro inside; at the old house I had a nice herb garden with two kinds of basil, mint, oregano (which I never actually used), cilantro and... something else I can't recall. It was outside in railing planters, and required occasional watering in case of lack of rain, and weeding. Inside, I find I need to water everything every day, and as the pots are small I expect I'm going to need to fertilize my chives (from last year, still in the same earth and still going strongish) fairly soon.

To grow these for seed, you just let them flower, water then, shake 'em up a bit so pollen spreads, and cultivate the seeds and pods. My chives are currently flowering, but only one flower at a time. I haven't found the need to make the flowers seed as I have plenty of seeds left and chives are perennials. Dill! That's the other one I had! I kept the dill seeds from last year, and also picked the cilantro seeds (coriander) and dried a huge bunch to grind them, keeping some seeds for a future batch (which is growing now). I'm not sure about other herbs, but I'm sure an online search for the flowers and seeds of herbs will yeild results. It's just that dill and cilantro have very very obvious seeds. Also, the seeds of dill fall off the branches very easily, so they pretty much take care of themselves, they'll keep coming back like weeds.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

We do indeed have sage in the garden. It's the big leafy shrub with masses of purple flower spikes. The little, less leafy shrub with masses of purple flower spikes (not all of which have bloomed yet) is the lavender.

[raven-albion.livejournal.com]

On growing herbs for seed/propagation:

Thyme: Will make seeds, I believe in its second year and onward. It's mint-family, though, so you also can divide it once it threatens to overflow its pot. I have a big clump in my garden that overwinters with no special protection.

Rosemary: The one perennial herb I can't seem to make survive through the winter, so I've never had one that's big enough to try to propagate, nor have I had one old enough to bloom or set seeds...so I can't help there, sorry.

Sweet basil: Will come true from seed and is an annual, so all you have to do is not pinch off all the flowery bits...though I'm not sure, I think basil may need pollinators, so if you're keeping it inside all the time you may not get seeds to save.

Sweet marjoram: I have no idea, I haven't ever grown it.

Oregano: A tiny bit pickier than thyme, but same general idea. I'm not sure oregano will come back true from seed, but it's perennial, so if you get one established you may not need to re-seed. Again, I have a big clump that has overwintered down here in VT for 3 years now with no problems.

Mint: Does not come true from seed, but can easily be propagated by dividing the roots. If you're planting it outside, bury a pot in the ground and put the mint in that pot--otherwise you will have a whole garden of mint, as it spreads by root.

Hope that helps!

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

One of my fellow About.com Guides covers Herb Gardens (http://herbgardens.about.com/). There's a ton of nifty information about how to grow herbs at home that might help you.