Herb Gardening Is Rewarding In More Ways Than One

It seems that every time I watch a lawn care or landscaping show on HGTV, the homeowner decides to have an herb garden planted somewhere near the kitchen. It’s just “the cool thing to do.”

Herb gardening is becoming more and more popular every day, and for a good reason. Herbs have practical value, serve a purpose, and with herb gardening you can actually consume your plants. When most people think of herb gardening they automatically think of cooking, but herbs are also grown for their pleasant aroma and their beauty.

One important part of herb gardening is drying the herbs for use during the winter months, especially if you plan on cooking with them. First the tops of leafy herbs have to be cut, washed, and hung up for the water to evaporate. Then, tie stems together and hang up in a paper bag to dry. After two to three weeks they must be removed; crumble the leaves, dry them out in the oven, and store in a glass jar.

One of the most common herbs gown in herb gardening is basil. “Dark Opal” and regular green basil are beautiful additions to any garden and often used as decoration. Dark Opal has light pink flowers and dark red leaves. Basil isn’t just used for its looks; it is used for extra flavor in tomato juices and pastes.

Chives are very petite looking and resemble a blade of grass. They are much stronger than they look, however, and will grow well through a drought. Their toughness and sturdiness make Chives a perfect plant for herb gardening, especially if the gardener doesn’t want plants that require a lot of hassle. Chives are good used in salads, egg dishes, and many different sauces. Their onion-flavor makes a great addition to your baked potato or chips and salsa!

Mint is also very simple to grow and is good to use in mint jelly, mint juleps, lemonade, that wonderful Mohito recipe, and any other kind of fruity drink. Mint is also good in herb gardening for its unique minty smell. Two similar herbs that appear in nearly everyone’s herb garden are thyme and sage. Both of these herb gardening favorites are used for flavoring soups, chicken, turkey, pork, and other sausages. Sage is also grown sometimes for its beautiful blue spiked flowers.

Lavender is probably the best smelling herb in all of herb gardening and is often used in candles, as a perfume scent, and to improve the smell in linen chests. The light purple flowers smell absolutely lovely. The only concern with lavender is its propensity to take over your garden. It does require quite a bit of trimming to keep it in check.

Other less common herbs often grown by homeowners include borage (used in salads), senna and ginger (used for colon cleansing and IBS relief) chervil (used in egg dishes), sweet marjoram (flavors lamb, fish, salad, and soup), sesame (flavors crackers, cookies, and bread), and dill (flavors meats and used in pickles).

Herb gardening allows gardeners to use items from their own back yard for cooking, looks, and scent. Herb gardening will produce much fresher herbs with more flavor than store-bought herbs, and are a lot cheaper. Plus, it just makes Mom that much more proud to say that she has added fresh herbs to the salad on the table!

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