must have herbs

[Valerie McMartin]

My uncle gave me some mint recently, and it's started the battle of the herb garden in our house. I'm ready to stick it in the garden anywhere and move it next year if it's not in a great spot (poor thing's in a bucket wihtout drainage on the deck). My husband wants to carefully plot out what plants are going in our herb garden, the exact dimenions of the garden and where it will go in the field, and whether its a raised bed or rows. and he wants to do this before the mint leaves it's bucket.

So, do you have favorite perennial herbs?

I'm thinking that I want lots of mint types for teas, some chamomile for scent, oregano for cooking, sage for cooking, lavender for scent, catnip for our 5 furbabies, and basil for cooking. I'm not sure what else I should be considering.

I have asparagus planted, parsley I thought was biannual, so i wouldn't want it in the perennial bed. Garlic won't be going in the herb garden bed eitehr since it gets dug up. Actually our garlic is with our raspberries (someone told my husband it would keep the japanse beetles away).

what perennial herbs do you grow and how do you use them? In the fall I might ask the same question about annual herbs, I plan to sneak them into the main garden next spring.

thanks,

Valerie

[Katie Quinn-Jacobs]

I'm a relative newbie at herbs, but here's what I've done.

Planted the mint (very, very invasive) in a raised bed of its own outside the deer fence. That way it can go as crazy as it likes without crowding the other plants.

Elsewhere outside the deer fence, I've planted the highly odorous herbs (because I've found the deer don't like the stinky ones that humans crave) like oregano, thyme, rosemary and chives. The rosemary, however, is planted in a bucket and the bucket is planted in the ground, so I can pull it in the fall and bring it inside over the winter. I planted the thyme and the oregano as ground covers under my peonies around the lamppost in the front yard. They are doing a lovely job keeping out the weeds and giving us savory treats close to the kitchen door.

Dill and parsley share a bed inside the garden. Just started this arrangement can't speak to how well they get along. The deer ate all my dill last fall! And a wabbit ate my parsley - I think - or maybe it died a natural biennial death...hard to say.

Basil (3 varieties of it!) gets its own 14' raised bed, since I make a lot of pesto and freeze it. Terrific vegan recipe there featuring basil and walnuts. Yum!

That's the extent of my herb know-how.

-- Kate

PS: Some women run with the wolves...I garden with the deer.

[crowjoy]

The oregano is an annual right? or did I just kill mine last year?

[Katie Quinn-Jacobs]

Oregano is perennial. Well...at least mine came back this year, though it did do a fair simulation of looking like a dead mat before it burst into green.

-- Kate

[Roxy]

Hi Valerie, I applaud your husbands desire to plan.....however....if I'd followed that path I'd still have an empty herb garden! Each year I drop in a few more herbs here and there around stepping stones. What lives gets to stay in place. What struggles might get moved - or just replaced when it gives up. The extra space is filled with the veggies that won't fit in the main garden. Over time it's looking more like an herb garden and less like a holding space for random plants ;-)

As for the particular herbs - the mints should be separated and controlled (as should the catnip). I wonder if those forms for homemade stepping stones would provide you with nice whimsical boundaries? Garlic is easier to manage in a raised bed grown on 4" centers and mulched heavily at planting. Dill could used supports like they sell for tall flowers - and if you're growing fennel too you'll have to separate these fellows so they don't cross pollinate. My chamomile, oregano, sage and lavender all do ok with no care. They'd do much better with care given to covering them with straw before the hard frosts hit.

Oh, I vote for raised beds or keyhole gardening schemes (http://www.raw-food-health.net/RaisedVegetableGarden.htmlfor the herb garden. An herb garden planted on rows takes all the fun out of it! ;-)

Happy planting!
Roxy

[Amy Maltzan]

How about chives? It's always one of the first perennial herbs to come back each spring in our garden, and pairs wonderfully with most spring vegetables. The purple flowers are edible, too.

I love your idea of planting lots of mint types for tea, and I'm intrigued about planting the garlic by raspberries -- my husband and I will be starting raspberry bushes next spring, so I'll be interested to hear if that works!

Take care,
Amy

[Valerie McMartin]

thanks for all the tips.

I know mint's invasive, but I love it soo much that I wouldn't mind if it took over the field. I did think about putting it in the field between the fruit trees and letting it be the groundcover, instead of mowing, but my husband doesn't share my fondness for the mint and I think I need to let the trees establish themselves well before thinking about having them compete with mint. lol

I took a couple big pots (like what bushes and small trees come in) and cut the bottoms off of them. I'm planning to put the mint in those in the ground. that way there won't be a drainage or nutrient problem, and it'll take a little while before they tottally get loose in the garden. if they don't go in a raised bed, then my husband wants rows so that he can take the lawnmower along them and mow down the runners. That's his theory on controlling the raspberry bushes when they start spreading like crazy too. personally I don't mind them spreading either. as a kid I picked raspberries at my grandfather's house and didn't pay attention, eventually finding myself in the center of the plot and not seing a way out. Even at the time, I found it amusing since I knew he'd come and help me get out.

unfortunately our herb garden will probably end up on the other end of the field, very far from the house. but it will be safe from trampoling kids, and things. I'd really like to do it as a raised bed, or series of raised beds.

I've never eaten fennel, so I don't know what to do with it.

Chives, i forgot about that. that's got to go on the list.

We planted the garlic near the raspberries before the raspberries started leafing out this year. Now that they have leafed out, we can see that the garlic is next to 1 living and 2 dead raspberries. the garlic is not next to the other 99 raspberries. So not sure that we can call it a valid test this year. lol

but the japanese beetles were a major problem for us last year. we actually put something on the soil to kill their eggs. I hate using stuff like that though. it was supposed to work for 7 years before needing another application and supposed to be non harmful to humans, etc. after we applied it we learned that in NY state the witners are too cold that we'd have to apply the stuff every year or every other. so whatever that stuff was my husband used last year we won't be buying again. to expensive, and i prefer non chemical.

well, i'll look at this posting again later. Camryn's calling me (3 year old).

thanks,

Valerie

[crowjoy]

I love herbs!! I had fennel for the first time last year and it was great. It didn't bulb (but it did come back this year, so maybe this year it will bulb?) but I used the fronds all summer long and it was great. Fresh fennel leaves add a real ooomph to Italian foods, red or white or broth sauces. But I think my favorite thing to do with fennel is drape the fern leaves over a roast - pork, chicken, lamb - and let it get crispy in cooking. It's like a lace on top, so pretty and so yummy.

The bulbs I've had before (but not grown) and I just chop those into stir fries and such. It smells like licorice but doesn't really taste that way when cooked.

[Katie Quinn-Jacobs]

I used fennel for the first time this winter in a soup. It was great. So I used it too as a flavoring in my beef bouillion. Worked great.

I've never grown it though. Is it biennial or perennial?

-- Kate

[crowjoy]

I'm guessing biennial but won't know until next year!

[Kristen Olson]

Raw fennel sliced superthin is great in salads and slaws.

[Katie Quinn-Jacobs]

You know as I was weeding the dill and parsley this morning, my thoughts strayed to fennel. Does it grow well from its own seed like dill? If so, does anyone have any for trade?

[crowjoy]

I have mint growing in our drainage ditch. I'd rather not be eating food from so close to the road (and who knows what's draining in there) so I'm thinking I'll transplant a chunk. I also have a naturalized lemon balm that's beautiful. Tried to move a piece of that last year but then had to till it over in the fall. Now I have a row dedicated to perennial herbs, so I can try again. Just got garlic and onion chives this year, hoping they will take off!