Friday, July 29, 2011

Frugal Friday - how to make your own herb garden! totally easy! & pet food giveaway winner!

Today I'd love to talk with you about herb gardens! A wonderful friend was talking with about them and I thought I'd share how truly easy it is to have your own! Not to mention you get to save around 4$ everytime you use your own herbs, and most of the time, lets face it, when we buy those packs of herbs from the grocery store, we never use the whole thing right away, so they can go bad fast, unless you buy the dried herbs but during the summer, its nice to have fresh herbs with all their flavor.  Because there are no veggies growing, herbs take up less time from you.

First thing to do - pick out where you would like to have your herb garden. You can have it anywhere you'd like, in the middle of your yard, off to the side, against a fence. I would place your herbs if you can against a fence if you have pets of children so that they are off to the side and have less chance of being trampled.

Next - decide what kind of herbs that you use most. Chances are you will have these herbs for a long time as most of them go to seed at the end of the season, and the next year come up again. We have parsley and cilantro this year. Three years ago I planted a small mint, oregano, lavender and sage and they have come back up every year since then.  You might want to choose an herb that goes to seed so that it will come back every year. Our rosemary sadly every year dies during the cold, but alot of others come back more abundant and larger. If you live in warm climate, you don't have to worry about the cold. I remember when we were in Hawaii, and we spotted a rosemary bush! It was beautiful.   And just so you know, mint will take over. I planted lavender with mint, and the mint has left a small bit of lavender left so make sure to leave a big area! The plus side is that you have more mint for mojitos:) (or in our case, we use alot of our mint to make our soaps!)  You can purchase herbs at your local Shoprite, Home Depot, farmers market or local greenhouse.

Step 3 - bring your herbs home! If there is grass against the fence where you are putting your herb garden, dig up the grass. You can purchase a bag of dirt with nutrients if you have a dry area to use.  Dig about 3 inches down, take your herb out of the container, and place in the hole you've dug. Place dirt, store bought or the dirt you've dug out, around the plant so that the herb is standing tall on its own. Now, water the plant until its drenched in water. When you've taken a plant from its usual element, it can be shocked so you want to feed it with lots of water!

Step 4 - Until you are used to what the herbs look like (which you will be I promise after a few weeks of looking at them) make sure to place that little identification stick thingy that herbs come with in the ground next to the herb it goes with. You can also, if you are feeling creative, use popsicle sticks and glue on your own labels:) Whatever you'd like to do!

Step 5 - leave your herb to grow! Make sure to water your herb every morning and pick as needed! Also what we do, and this is totally up to you if you want to or not, is in the wintertime, we noticed that the herbs seeds stay strong and are more likely to come back when kept warm by the leaves. So we don't rake the leaves along the fence through the fall or winter or spring, we just leave them there and the herbs grow through them! It also helps to create a nice mulchy dirt.

Here are pictures of a few of our herbs after it rained -

crazy mint with a few sprigs of lavender trying to shine through:)


oregano -

parsley with some raspberrys trying to creep in!


Good Luck!!! and Happy Friday!!

The winner of the Innova Pet Food giveaway using random.org is comment #1 Laura! Congratulatiosn Laura and I'll be contacting you shortly!

2 comments:

  1. That is amazing!! I just love the pictures! i def need to do this soon!! When do you plant herbs for the next year?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Soso beautiful!!! I want to plant herbs too but I don't have a backyard yet! Any suggestions on best indoors herbology? :)
    D

    ReplyDelete

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