Western Morning News (Saturday)
Herb appeal
EASY TO GROW IN YOUR GARDEN AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW A FEW SIMPLE RULES
AROMATIC AND DELICIOUS, HERBS ARE
HERBS are the original multipurpose plants. They’re good-looking and aromatic, plus they attract the attention of butterflies and bees.
The shorter kinds, such as borage, chervil and coriander, are brilliant for containers, and parsley is stunning for edging a decorative potager.
The evergreen shrubby sort, such as rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender and bay, between them make the backbone of a firstclass Mediterranean planting scheme.
You could landscape a tiny garden with nothing but herbs and create a vibrant effect. Then you can eat them, too.
Herbs are easy to grow, but where many people go wrong is trying to treat them all the same. These plants fall roughly into three groups, which all need handling a bit differently.
EVERGREEN MEDITERRANEAN
These herbs, which include rosemary, sage and bay, and all the various lavenders and thymes, are technically hardy. However, they hate having wet feet so it is best not to plant them outside too early.
Wait until the ground has dried a bit and the cold weather is over – any time over the next few weeks will be spot-on.
This group insists on a warm, sunny site and well-drained soil, so work in some gritty sand or fine gravel. They aren’t fussed about rich soil, so don’t go mad with the organic matter.
If your soil isn’t suitable, grow them in large containers filled with gritty John Innes compost instead.
Purists claim that when you want Mediterranean herbs for cooking, keeping them halfstarved, bone-dry and in scorching sun improves the flavour. But personally I’d be kinder and give them a light feed each spring.
Also give container-grown plants a watering during dry spells – you will have better-looking plants that flower more effectively.
TRADITIONAL PERENNIALS
Chives, mint and tarragon can be planted out now, but since this group dies down for the winter, make sure you can see some green new life before buying a potful.
That’s why a lot of nurseries don’t start selling this type of herb until relatively late in the spring or even early summer, when there’s plenty of strong new growth.
These all like a more moistureretentive sort of soil than Mediterranean herbs – they hate drying out in summer, so work in plenty of organic matter and a sprinkling of general-purpose organic fertiliser before planting.
And since they are true herbaceous perennials, it’s best to dig up clumps and divide them every few years, about now, then replant them after refreshing the ground with more organic matter.
Mint is particularly greedy and an old plant slowly peters out unless you move it to a new site every few years – it literally exhausts the soil.
And if you want to stop it ‘running away’ to find a new spot of its own, confine it in a big old plastic pot sunk to its rim in the ground – but make sure to re-pot it every spring.
HARDY ANNUALS
This group includes borage and parsley and can be sown from now onwards, as soon as the ground has warmed and dried out enough. But to be frank, you’ll do a lot better sowing the lot in pots on a windowsill indoors, then dividing up the resulting clumps and planting them outside when the weather has warmed up and the soil has dried out a bit.
Sowing indoors works best for the cold-tender annual herbs such as leaf coriander, chervil and basil, which are all commonly used.
But even parsley, which everyone thinks is easy, germinates better and faster if you keep the seeds at 21°C. And although it doesn’t transplant very well, it’s no problem if you sow several small pinches of seeds in small individual pots or even the cells of an egg box, and replant entire small clumps without splitting them up.
By sowing the annual herbs now, they will be just right for planting out in three or four weeks’ time.
Just fill your pots, tubs or baskets with a half-and-half mixture of John Innes No1 potting and peat-free compost, and treat them the same as bedding plants.
Purists say keeping them half-starved and dry improves the flavour