Handy Hints for Herb Growing

Sometime last year I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great to have fresh herbs readily available? It'd be so much cheaper and fresher than going out an buying it from the supermarket and all it takes is a bit of watering each day. I started off with a bit of rosemary and this is the end result:

A sad sight, I know.

Well, this year it's going to be different. I expanded the garden a bit to try to get myself motivated and vow to water it everyday as opposed to whenever I remember.

I got some herb specific soil from Bunnings for $10 and mint, rosemary, basil plants of relatively reasonable size so they'd more established and hopefully less fragile. Doing a bit of research helps and here are some useful tips I found:

 Put herbs somewhere sunny with about 6 hours of sunlight (but not too hot).

Easiest herbs to grow in pots are mint, rosemary, sage and basil.

Space out plants like rosemary and mint as they will expand a bit. Plus basil likes extra room for better circulation.

Mint and chives go best in a self watering container whereas basil and rosemary prefer to dry out between watering.

Soil is only good for 6 months so if you have an old bag lying around probably best to throw it out.

Don't over fertilise but adding some seaweed concentrate after initial transfer will help to reduce shock. I'm also going to try using the seaweed concentrate every 2-4 weeks as a pick me up.

Get some natural pesticide spray, even on the balcony I'm getting caterpillars and bugs eating up my lovely basil leaves so a once weekly spray will hopefully get onto that.

Chives and mint - with plenty
of room to grow.

Nothing like some morning
 gardening to start the day.

Rosemary and basil living
in perfect harmony.

I'm really looking forward to watching my little herbs thrive and reaping the bounty of my labour with lovely basil filled spaghetti sauces and lychee and mint shakes. My mouth is watering already.