Herb Gardening: For Beginning Gardeners
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Although herb gardening is quite feasible even for beginning gardeners, you will need to know something about herbs. So, do a little investigating. Are you gardening biennials (two-year life cycle) or annuals? Will they transplant well? Which of them can tolerate shade? If you are not growing them yourself, do you buy seeds, seedlings or plants? Do you want to grow your garden indoor or outdoor? Adequate Lighting If you have windowsills facings east, they are the best location for your indoor herb gardening. If you are determined to garden them indoor but do not have adequate lighting, you can use grow lights. Just make certain your herbs are at least six inches away from those grow lights. The rule of thumb for gardening is adequate sunlight. That equates to about six hours a day. Harvesting The optimum time to harvest your garden is just before the blossoms are completely open, when the oils and flavors are plentiful. For many herbs, you can regrow them rapidly if you harvest just about three-quarters of your yield and leave the rest alone. Examples of such herbs are parsley, basil, and mint. Drying Herbs Indoors Gather the herbs from your garden just before drying, to ensure they are fresh. Wash them in cold water and remove all dirt. If there are blossoms, remove those also. If you have the leafy kind, cut off the tops. Place them on absorbent paper towels or until the water has evaporated. You can then place them in a brown paper bag upside down. Leave about two inches of the stems exposed. This will allow the oil to go down to the leaves. Close the bag with a twister seal or a rubber band and let the bag hang for about three weeks. By this time, you can crush the leaves and place them scattered evenly on a cookie sheet. Preheat your oven to warm, and continue the drying out time. You can also dry herbs in the microwave, between paper towels in single layer, but you will have to check them every 30 seconds to prevent over-drying. They should be brittle and fall apart easily. Place the dried herbs in a clean glass jar or other airtight container and store in a cool dark place. Drying Spices Indoors For stronger flavor and more pungent aroma, try your hand at spices. For spices you are looking at roots, bark, seeds, flowers, etc. of the plant instead of the leaves. If you want to dry seed heads, wait until the seeds are ripe and about to drop from the plant. You may want to let the seed heads dry out in the sun for the first 24 hours to allow any bugs inside to leave. If you intend to use your spices for cooking, do not crush them prior to drying. Wait until you are ready to cook. Freezing Herbs Follow cleaning instructions for drying. Blanch the herbs in unsalted boiling water for 55 seconds. Immerse in ice water and freeze in a plastic bag. If you want to freeze basil, parsley, chives or dill, you can put these herbs in the freezer without blanching them. Giving your garden reasonable care makes herb gardening easy. More on Herb Gardening!
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