Use One of These 4 Simple Garden Designs to Grow the 12 Best Kitchen Herbs
(Page 2 of 5)
October/November 2006
By Barbara Pleasant
Several of the top culinary herbs, such as dill, basil and cilantro, are fast growing annuals whose seeds can be easily sown directly in the garden. Most other cooking herbs are hardy perennials that come back every year. Perennial herbs can be grown from seed, too, but the seedlings require several months to reach picking size. Some herbs require starting with plants that were propagated from rooted stem cuttings. For example, mints that carry the subtle flavor of chocolate or pear are best purchased as plants, and the only tarragon worth having is French tarragon, which is always grown from rooted cuttings. To be sure you’re getting true French tarragon, taste a leaf before you buy. It should have a zippy licorice flavor.
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Speaking of rooted cuttings, if you buy fresh mint, oregano or marjoram at the store, and you decide you’d like to grow it, by all means choose a few healthy sprigs and try growing them as rooted cuttings. Just pinch off all but the top three or four leaves, trim the base of the cutting back to green healthy tissue, plant the cutting in a pot of moist soil, then cover with a plastic bag for a few days. I have rooted oregano right in the garden by covering the cutting with a flowerpot for a week (the pot protects the little plant from sun until it has time to grow roots). My mint got its start as a supermarket sprig, too, and after four years in a large pot it’s still going strong.
Rosemary is not consistently winter hardy beyond Zone 7, and cold winter winds can damage oregano, sage and tarragon, even in areas where they’re rated hardy. The safest way to make sure your favorite perennial herbs survive winter is to move them to pots, allow them to become dormant, then keep them in a cold garage or outbuilding where temperatures seldom drop below 20 degrees. Or dig and store only rosemary, and surround your other perennial herbs with a 12-inch-tall wire cage filled with loose straw or pine needles. A loose pile of evergreen boughs arranged over the plants’ crowns also does an excellent job of protecting them from biting winter winds. Remove either form of winter protection about a month before the last expected frost.
You may want to mail order special strains of some culinary herbs, or wait until spring and shop for plants at local garden centers or herb farms. As you examine prospective adoptees, take a moment to check the pot to see how many plants are growing there. Last spring when I bought what was offered as a single sage plant, I found four nicely rooted cuttings in the pot, which were easy to pull apart and put out in individual planting holes. Small pots of basil often contain more than a half dozen little seedlings, which can be divided and transplanted, provided you shade them from the sun for a few days as they become accustomed to their new home.
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