Fresh Herb Gardening

By Dewitt Guillen


Are you wondering on what things to do during your free time? Herb gardening is one of the best things to do amongst choices. You can simply grow your own herbs at home and at the same time be productive on your own free time. There are many varieties of herbs to choose from that can be used for culinary dishes, home cooking or even for medicinal purposes. Herbs are at their very best when they are harvested freshly. Their efficacy is very good and gives you very productive and best results. Making an herb garden is very simple start with and helps a great way to overcome dullness of your spare time.
There are many types of herbs to choose from such as oregano, parsley and thymes. It gives out a wonderful aroma and scent that is very pleasing to your home or office environment, creating a refreshing and cool atmosphere in the area.
In harvesting fresh herbs, it simply requires enough sunlight and adequate water, but there are some herbs that require minimal exertion. Healthy soil and proper drainage is also needed as it is one way not to strain out the taste of the herb that you have planted. Fertilizers are optional as long as the soil used is suited enough to produce herbs that are of good quality. Identifying a nice spot to plant and put up your herb garden also matters on the production of your planted herbs. It is advisable to plant herbs on dry soil. Excessive water causes the soil to be much damped that it reduces the flavor of the herb that you are growing.
These herbs are very essential to everyone and is used as a great part of everyday life, may it be in cooking, decorative or medicinal purposes. Oregano and parsley are some kinds of herbs that best suited to be grown indoors. These are perfect for culinary purposes as it adds and brings out the flavor of the dish being prepared. Herbs can be dried as it can be used for garnishing and may also be an additive to the dish being served. It is a very good method used to preserve the herb if you had ample production and need to keep these for future purposes.
In using herbs as medicine, they do it as sprayed dried, a process that involves particle distribution as to have precise quality standards, thus resulting to have great effects and uses to those who use herbal medicine. These developed medicines derived from herbs are very popular to tropical countries since most herbs grow on these kinds of climate.
Lavenders is also a type of herb that crafts your garden with a fantastic color, bringing out the beauty of your herb garden, plus the scent that it gives is very pleasant. A healthy soil also acts a vital function in herb gardening for it is the base of the herbal plant that you are growing. Fresh herbs are fitted in all aspects where you can use it in home cooking, decorations or for ornamental and medicinal purposes. Cultivating your own herbs and producing them freshly gives satisfaction to one's fulfillment and get to enjoy what you have worked hard for, thus, giving a great satisfaction level on you esteem and your confidence for your produce is very grand.
Dewitt is an herb expert. For more great informations on fresh herb garden, visit http://www.herbgardeninformation.net/
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Easy Gardening - Parsley Varieties

By D. Perse

Parsley is one of the most well known herbs and also one of the easiest to use. It tastes fresh and its flavor goes with almost any food except deserts. You can sprinkle it on your eggs or add it to almost any other dish on your menu. You can use it fresh or dry, year-round. It also beautifully embellishes your dinner plate sprinkled chopped on top of the food or as side decoration.

We know and grow three parsley varieties:

• Curly parsley or curly leaf parsley
• Italian parsley or flat leaf parsley
• Hamburg parsley

Curly parsley is bright green, its leaves more or less tightly curled and coarser than the leaves of Italian parsley. It is restaurant chefs’ favorite for garnishing. Curly leaf parsley’s growth is compact, usually not very vigorous, the stems are quite short and it therefore makes and excellent edging in flower beds. Its color is a perfect match to hot pink, bright orange, red and yellow blooms.

Italian parsley grows usually taller, more vigorous and has more taste than the curly kind. Flat leaf parsley is glossy green, its leaves softer (and easier to chew on while eaten fresh), on longer stems. It shouldn’t miss in anyone’s garden. Flat-leaved parsley fits in your flower bed as well and works great for filling blank spots in your perennial border.

Hamburg parsley is more often used and grown in Europe. On top of flat, great tasting leaves, its parsnip-like root is also edible. The root can be used fresh (sliced or grated in your salad) or cooked in any soup or stew. Hamburg parsley’s root has a distinctive, peppery taste. Which parsley variety to choose is completely up to you and what you want to use this great herb for. All three are rich in vitamins A and C. They all grow in sun to partial shade, in well drained soil. While you can easily find flat and curly leaf seedlings in any nursery, it’s very unlikely to find the Hamburg parsley so you’ll have to grow this gem from seeds.

See parsley photos at: http://dariasworld.info/photo_parsley.htm

Copyright © 2007 D. Perse. All rights reserved.

D. Perse is a student of Herbology at Clayton College of Natural Health, passionate about growing herbs and collecting interesting facts about them, including history and legends, medicinal uses, recipes, growing tips and more. Website http://www.dariasworld.info is devoted to herbs and offers tons of free information for the purpose of educating and empowering, never to diagnose, prescribe or treat. Because one's health is in one's own hands.

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Getting Your Garden From The Source

By Clinton N. Maxwell

Many people don't know where to begin when they are talking about planting a garden. They have good intentions and they have a great deal of interest in planting a garden they just don't know where to start. Once you have figured out what to do and how to begin your garden planting then you should be fine; however sometimes people need a little bit of guidance to get them off on the right foot. If you are one of these people and you need some help in getting yourself going on your garden situation that you can often go down to the hardware store or the plant store and buy plants which are ready to be put into the fertile soil. While this may seem like some to be a bit of a copout it is a way that many people are able to appreciate the garden situation and are able to begin their garden without too much money being spent.

Buying Your Seeds Direct

If you don't want to introduce live plants into your soil because you don't know how good your soil is that one of the things you can do is buy your seeds direct. Seeds are sold through catalog offers or through the use of the Internet and they allow for people to be able to begin their garden without even leaving their home. If you feel like you have good soil to be able to support a plant then you should certainly see about getting some seeds for your garden.

However many people don't even know where to begin with their soil. For this you need to be able to buy some good topsoil and till the soil so that it will be able to support your plants and generate routes down deep enough that the plans will be able to live. For some instructions on this you can go to numerous online resources or you can even buy a book. There are plenty of books about gardening which are available and which will tell you what type of soil you need for what planet is he want to grow. The latest information is probably the best so if you can get a newer book or if you can get a newer edition of the classic book or if you can just go on the Internet you would be able to find all the information you need.

Low Cost Is the Way To Go

If you are concerned about money then you should probably not be investing thousands of dollars in your garden; there are many interesting and fun ways to keep the costs low and still enjoy your yard. If you want to find out more ways about how to keep the costs down on your gardening you should definitely head over to one of the gardening super centers. There are people at any of these great home improvement stores who'll be able to talk to you at great length and in great detail about what type of money you would need to spend for what type of plant is to look at the grow; then you can go home and order them on the Internet or through a catalog.

Clinton Maxwell's summaries are published on lots of web pages associated with chain saw sharpeners. You might discover his work on Oregon chain saw sharpener at other sources for Oregon chain saw sharpener information.

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How to Plant a New Garden

By Douglas Hill

When gardening, before anything is planted, it is highly recommended that the soil is prepared properly. To learn more about this go to my article Soil Prep For Your New Garden for more info on this area.

There are two ways you can plant your garden, from transplants or seeds.

There are a few decisions you will need to make before buying your seeds. First you should take a good look at your garden and be realistic with the amount you can plant. It is better to have more plants and little variety than lots of variety and not enough room to grow a substantial amount of anything. For new gardeners, choosing your seeds will be a little difficult as well. You want to strike a balance between their ability to tolerate disease, the amount of time you have daily to put into your garden, and the time of the season they will mature.

There are numerous places to buy seeds. You can go to a nursery, gardening centers, online, or from mail order catalogue. I would recommend you buy new seeds every year to avoid poor germination the next season. You also do not want to save seeds from your harvest to plant next year. I know that it sounds like a nice sustainable way to produce a good harvest year after year but the problem lies with the fact that we plant more than one vegetable in our garden at a time. The plants that would grow from seeds from last year's harvest will be hybrids of the plants they are supposed to be, due to cross pollination with other plants in your garden. Another thing to remember is that seeds can transmit disease from one year to the next so save yourself a lot of work and aggravation and just buy new seeds every year. One last thing to remember about handling your seeds is that they are chemically sprayed to kill off any disease that may be on or in the seed. This practice also helps prevent the seeds from rotting before you can get them in the ground. So always remember to wash your hands when you are done.

Now it is time to plant your new seeds. There are two methods you can employ; you can sow your seeds by scattering them or planting them in furrows. I would recommend you take the time to plant them properly in furrows so you can regulate the amount of seeds you plant in every square foot of your garden. When planting, try to shoot for a depth of not more than three times the seeds thickness. If you plant too deep the seed may germinate and be too deep to make it to the surface and if too shallow it may be washed away by rain or watering or it may be blown away by the wind. After you add a little bit of mulch on top of your seed row to help you conserve moisture all you have to do is watch and wait.

If you decide to go with the transplant route there are a few more points I want to make to ensue your transplants take. First you need to "harden" your plants. It doesn't matter if you choose to buy them or grow them yourself you must acclimatise your new plants to the outdoors. I recommend you keep your plants in a shady, dry, and windproof location outdoors for 8-10 days before planting. Over the course of this time you should gradually increase their exposure to the sunlight so they can get used to the warmth of the sun. Also to note, during the hardening period you should allow your plants to dry out a little between watering. The hardening period will help your young plants get used to the harsher conditions when growing outdoors than inside a garden center or your home. The day before planting give them a good watering to help them

Them main goal of transplanting is to not disturb the roots too much. It is nice when you can buy your transplants if biodegradable peat pots because you can just plant them into the soil, pot and all. The only recommendation is for you to make sure you completely bury the pot because it can wick out the water from around the plant. If in a non biodegradable pot then you should carefully take the plant out of the pot and gently tease the roots free from the big ball that they have probably become. Plant immediately and only do one plant at a time. Do not take them all out of their pots and then try to plant them.

Once you plant your new plants they may need protection from direct sunlight or frost (depending on the season you plant in). If you are concerned about the sun then lay a wood board down, leaned up so it creates a sun shade. If the possibility of frost is the problem then drape plastic over you plants to avoid getting frost on them. If you use plastic make sure to put small holes in it to allow the plant to breath during the day. You could burn your plants instead of save them.

Hi my name is Doug and I live in the Okanagan Valley in British Colombia BC. I have spent most of my life working my way through various different career paths that has helped me develop a diverse knowledge base to which I write on. For more on gardening and more for your home and health needs go to http://homeandhealthmishmash.blogspot.com/

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