What You Need To Know When Growing A Container Herb Garden
submitted: Sep 8th 2008 |
by: LeeDobbins |
Total views: 1 |
Word Count: 545 |
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Planting a container herb garden provides advantages that cannot be achieved through growing herbs in your garden. Container herb gardening provides the mobility necessary to protect your herbs from harsh outdoor weather and seasonal conditions, as well as predatory animals and insects. You will enjoy cultivating your herbs year-round in a more stable and forgiving environment than can be achieved through outdoor planting.
Selecting the right plants is the first step to successful container herb gardening. Other key factors to success include providing good, rich soil and controlling moisture and nutrients. Whether these factors are provided by nature or adjusted artificially, they are the key elements to your success.
If you intend to do container herb gardening, you have many options. There are a number of herbs that you can choose from. Dill, lavender, mint and sage are a few such herbs. Additionally, some herbs will prosper in a variety of containers. For example, basil can grow in an old teapot and rosemary can be successful in a coffee can.
The most important key to a successful container herb gardening is to begin the process with high-quality seeds. Air can cause seeds to go bad, for air contains spores that can invade and ruin seeds. A solution is to be conscious of the dates on the package and also discard any seeds that get wet.
When it comes to growing conditions, different types of herbs have different preferences. For example, basil prefers warm soil and doesn't not like cold air and would not do well in front of a frosty window during the middle of winter. So, be sure that you put your container herb garden in the right place!
When choosing where to place your plants, keep in mind that in the Northern Hemisphere, sunlight enters in at an angle more from the south. Therefore, plants that need a lot of sun will benefit from being placed where they will have southern exposure. For the plants that need partial shade should be placed on the northern side or you can position them in an area away from the window that is more shady.
It is just essential to prepare the soil with a proper mix of sand and clay. In order to keep it at the most suitable moisture content as much as possible, specially in a container, it is advisable also to apply clay chips, although it may perform its job so well by absorbing and holding water for longer periods than what is necessary.
It is very important that you water your herb garden correctly. Container plants often suffer from root rot because of excessive moisture. While some plants like to be moist all the time, herb plants need for their soil to be more dry. However, some herbs, such as peppermint, like moist soil.
Remember that to be moist is not to be soaked. Moist soil should feel springy, while dry soil is hard. Next, you can use a toothpick or a moisture gauge to stick in the soil. When you remove the toothpick you will be able to tell if the soil is wet or dry. The gauge's reading will be more useful and more precise, though.
Some thoughtful planning prior to planting, will enable you to have a container herb garden that is easier to grow and maintain.
About the Author
To learn more about growing a container herb garden as well as get tips on basic herb gardening, please visit http://basicherbgardeningtips.com/.
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