What is an Herb Garden?
Herb gardens have been around for as long as humans have cultivated plants for their own needs. Babylonian clay tablets from 3000 B.C. discuss plants being used for medicine, and the importation of useful plants from other regions. China, Egypt, India, and Assyria also have early written records of plants being used for medicine and other human needs. Our current definition of an herb garden originates from European gardens that have incorporated plants for medicine, fragrance, cooking, utility, and beauty. Early American gardens continued this tradition by utilizing these useful plants from Europe and Asia, and also those found locally. Rather than the gardening definition of an herb as being a perennial or annual non-woody plant, herb gardens actually emphasize all useful plants ranging from trees, shrubs, groundcovers, perennials, and annuals — to mosses, ferns, and fungi. Plants for herb gardens are selected according to their use to the gardener. Typically these plants contain ce
An herb garden is simply a place where you plant herbs for personal and culinary use. An herb garden can be an actual garden in the ground, part of a larger culinary or vegetable garden, mixed into a flower bed, or even planted in containers kept inside or on a back deck. But what is an herb? How are herbs and spices different? Botanists define herbs as plants without woody stems, that is, not trees or shrubs. To a cook, an herb is a plant used for its leaves and stems, as opposed to a spice, which is a flavoring derived from the bark, seeds, or roots of a plant. Parsley is an herb; cinnamon is a spice. Therefore, an herb garden can be defined as a collection of green, non-woody plants used for culinary and medicinal purposes. There are many different kinds of herbs that can be grown quite easily in an herb garden. The best herbs to choose are those that you frequently cook with or use. For instance, if you love Italian food, you should grow basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage. I
Getting Started The most economical and fastest way to access information on starting your own herb garden is by using the Internet. Thousands of websites are dedicated to the ins and outs of cultivating herbs in your garden. They offer invaluable insights into the characteristics of each type of herb, how to avoid certain pitfalls, how to treat certain diseases, the optimum weather conditions and soil mixture to yield a good crop and how to fend off garden pests such as snails, slugs and insects that impact the health of these plants. You can also invest in a create-your-own-herb-garden kit. They are widely available at garden centers, all ready to be used both indoors and outdoors. All the compost is mixed for you and all you need to do is follow the instructions, sow the seeds and watch the herb grow, simple and easy. Some herbs grow all year round while others thrive during certain months of the year and require constant sunshine and watering. When the herbs have hardened in the po
An herb garden is basically a garden that is being used solely to grow herbs. A better description of what an herb garden might be is a beautiful and relaxing place where you can find plants that are not only useful but also beneficial to the enjoyment of life. An herb garden can be any size or shape and can contain many different types of herbs or just a few. An herb garden may control an entire yard or be simply planted in a small window-box container. Herb gardens can be kept indoors on a sunny windowsill, or outdoors in the open breeze. An herb garden also can be incorporated into a vegetable garden, with landscape shrubbery, or mixed in with your flowers. There are many different types of herb gardens, each with character and charisma.
