Growing herbs is more than just pot luck
Downsized, renting or short of space? Here’s how to squeeze in herbs. Jane Wriggleworth reports.
Short on space? No problem. If your deck, front steps or patio receives several hours of sunlight a day, you can still grow an abundance of herbs to keep your kitchen stocked. Here’s how.
Containers
Where there is little or no garden space, containers are ideal. They can sit just about anywhere – even on your driveway, if that’s where the sun is – or use hanging baskets where ground space is limited. Multi-tiered planters and containers that attach to deck and balcony railings can multiply your planting space, and wicker baskets – or other recycled containers – are good for a couple of years, providing you line the baskets with plastic first.
Pretty much anything will do as a plant container, but make sure it has drainage holes.
Most herbs thrive in containers. The exceptions are herbs such as horseradish grown for their long roots. For them, choose a reasonable size container (at least 30cm deep) and use free-draining potting mix.
With commercial potting mixes, there’s no need to mix in compost or extra fertiliser at planting time (although chives and basil do enjoy a little compost). Too rich a soil only encourages soft, lush growth that lacks flavour.
After a few months, however, when most of the potting mix’s fertiliser has leached out, your potted herbs will benefit from a regular feed. Once every two to three weeks, or even every month, is fine.
Don’t overfeed your herbs or the volatile oils will become diluted. Most Mediterranean herbs, such as rosemary and thyme, do best when they’re starved for attention. Chives and basil, on the other hand, do well when fed regularly.
There’s no reason why you can’t plant several herbs in one container, but make sure it’s a large one and that the herbs you plant have similar tastes.
Funnily enough, while the most obvious herb for growing in a container is mint, it almost always does better in the ground. If you can grow it in a contained area in your garden, do so. If not, choose a very large container. Mint likes to stretch its legs.
Gravel gardens
Do you have a gravel path? Use it to grow herbs of Mediterranean origin, which like good drainage. Choose herbs such as sage, savory, thyme, rosemary, lavender, oregano, marjoram, and tarragon. To plant them, remove some of the gravel from your path and dig a hole or trench to a depth of 30cm. Add a 12cm layer of rubble to the hole, followed by 10cm of free-draining soil mix (three parts soil, two parts peat and one part sharp sand). Then fill the hole with gravel. You can grow a similar herb garden among your pavers. Remove alternating pavers to make a chequerboard pattern and plant the bare spaces.
Creeping herbs, such as thyme, Roman camomile (Chamaemelum nobile), and Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) are ideal for such spaces.
Lawns and groundcovers
If you have a spot in your backyard with bare soil or dispensable lawn, turn it into a fragrant herb lawn. Camomile, thyme, sweet woodruff (Galium
odoratum), sweet violet (Viola odorata) and Corsican mint all work well as groundcovers.
For a herbal lawn, try camomile or thyme. Roman camomile is the one to choose, not German camomile (Matricaria recutita), which is a taller growing annual. Roman camomile is a hardy perennial that forms a low-growing mat of evergreen foliage. Chamaemelum nobile needs to be clipped once a year to keep it tidy, though the variety ‘Treneague’, which grows only 5-10cm high and has no flowers, needs no clipping at all.
Thyme is drought-tolerant and produces masses of purple, pink or white flowers in spring or summer, depending on the variety. The creeping thymes (Thymus serpyllum and all its varieties) are ideal for lawns.
Woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus) also makes a great groundcover, as does Bressingham thyme (Thymus doerfleri ‘Bressingham’), which is one of the first to flower, with brilliant pink blooms in spring, and Thymus praecox ‘Coccineus’, which has crimson flowers in early summer. All do well as lawn substitutes but require a sunny spot with
free-draining soil. Clay soils are fine, so long as you improve the drainage first.
For a mint-flavoured groundcover for part shade, try Corsican mint, a deliciously scented plant with the tiniest leaves. It can be grown as a lawn substitute or in between pavers.
Before planting any groundcover, clear the area of weeds otherwise you’ll be forever weeding them later. Lift the turf with a spade to a depth of about 5cm, then dig over the whole area, pulling out any weeds. Add compost or grit if necessary and work this in. Leave to settle, then, if necessary, spray with weed killer a couple of weeks later to target any emerging weeds, or dig them out, ensuring you remove the roots too.
Vertical gardens
This style of garden has become hugely popular. Pocket gardens can be bought at garden centres or specialist retailers, or you can even use an old shoe pocket organiser to grow your herbs.
You can also make your own pocket garden with a durable, breathable material such as aquafelt, a reinforced polyester felt capillary matting, or non-woven geotextiles, available from specialist horticultural suppliers.
Cover a piece of treated wood with black polythene and cut aquafelt or geotextile to three times its length. Create pockets by folding the aquafelt or geotextile and stapling in place. When finished, attach to a fence and fill with potting mix and plant.
Pretty much anything will do as a plant container, but make sure it has drainage holes.