I couldn't imagine my garden without herbs. Whether for making tea, dinner, or a myriad of other uses herbs are an essential part of my garden. Some of the herbs in my garden I use as companion plants in addition to their culinary uses. Herbs are awesome and you should grow them if you aren't already. What herbs do I grow in my garden? I'm glad you asked because today for the
Friday Fives I'll share with you five of my favorite herbs. Please note though that these do well in my zone 6b-7 garden and may not perform the same where you are!
5 Herbs You Should Growing In Your Garden!
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My then 2 year old daughter (now 4)
examining the basil harvest! |
My number one herb, and perhaps my most favorite of all, is basil! We use basil in pesto, tomato sauces, on bruschetta, and in many other dishes. Essentially basil works great with almost any tomato dish. For companion planting I always plant some basil around my tomatoes. It repels insects like the hornworm and is reported to repel flies. I haven't seen a hornworm in my garden since I began interplanting my tomatoes and basil. The regular old Italian basil is great but my favorites are cinnamon basil and dark opal purple basil.  |
| Sage |
Culinary sage is another really good herb to plant. We use it in many of our meat dishes like meatloaf or turkey and is just a great seasoning in general. Sage is also an ally in the vegetable garden against cabbage moths and flea beetles. One of these day's I may actually plant it in the vegetable garden! Right now our sage is planted just off the patio where it's convenient to gather for cooking.- We like our rosemary too! It was a beautiful addition to our front walkway but sadly it faded from glory over a year ago. The cool thing about rosemary though is as long as you have a plant to take cutting from you can easily replace a lost rosemary. Just place a 6-8 inch rosemary cutting in a glass of water and watch the roots form or stick it directly in some soil and keep it moist. Rosemary when planted needs a location with good drainage and I don't recommend planting it on the north side of your home if you are in a borderline hardiness area for it. That's what caused my rosemary plants to die. I have two other starts of rosemary in a better location as well as a couple in pots so I'm good to go! Rosemary is a good repellent for cabbage moths and bean beetles so plant it around your vegetable garden somewhere!
- Mint is a tricky herb. It's great in tea and for use as a repellent for a bunch of different critters including rodents but it can spread. Let me rephrase that, it can spread a lot! Mint loves to run its roots just under the soil's surface and reach out to new frontiers - like your lawn or your garden. It's easy to pull though and if you like it enough you can dry it and have herbal mint tea throughout the winter. If you don't want to go chase a running herb use a pot to hold it in its place. You can even bury the pot with about 2 inches above the soil to give the effect of a planted well contained mint. Only you will know the truth!
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| Thyme planted from seed. |
Thyme is another good herb for your garden. Aside from being able to quip phrases like "I always have thyme to garden" or "there's never enough thyme in the garden," you will have a very nice evergreen groundcover herb that's also useful in the kitchen. Thyme is another deterrent for cabbage moths like rosemary and is well worth incorporating into the garden. I find it interesting that rosemary and thyme both repel cabbage moths and both have pine like attributes in their scents and flavors.
There are a whole bunch of other herbs out there that can benefit you and your garden. In addition to these five I also have lemon balm, oregano, catnip, cilantro, and stevia in the garden.
What's your favorite herb?
