How to Plant a Herb Garden

you know welcome to my cultivator my name is Steve have you or are you about to move to a new location with few or no established gardens well that is exactly what we have done gardening is a part of our soul so the first decision to make has been not will we establish gardens but what exactly will we do first to answer that question we considered what will be the most immediately useful thing in the garden and for us that is herb's so during this video we will look at how to establish simpler but very productive and useful herb garden a herb garden for anywhere on a large plot or even an apartment balcony herbs are scented plants used for both culinary and medicinal purposes the herb scent usually comes from the oil found in its leaves and flowers and it's the heat from the cooking or in fact the squeezing of the leaves that releases that scent there are many reasons to grove herb plants in your garden they can be used as ornamental plants in borders or rockeries some can be complimentary to the growth of other plants and some can even be used as deterrence to pest species and even nuisance animal visitors however for most people including us we grow herbs primarily to use in our cooking so our herb selection is based mostly on which herbs we will need in our cooking common herbs that you might want to consider in your herb garden include things like basil coriander you can see here some oregano and of course rosemary other herbs that you might like to consider and I'm going to plant now include things like sage various types of mint and I've got common mint and this one here is spearmint some thyme and of course the ever favorite parsley now each of these herbs I've selected because again these are herbs that we will use in our kitchen so our first task when it comes to planning out our herb garden is to decide exactly what location we're going to put it in now herbs need sunlight and good drainage so you need to look for a location where full Sun is available for at least 70% of the day this is not to say that you can't grow herbs with less Sun just don't choose a location that is mostly shaded look for that place where it is mostly sunny the next thing is the soil that you're going to plant your herbs into most herbs like a well-drained soil so if you are planting in the ground and sure that the soil is not clay you may need to break the clay down and enrich the soil with a lot of organic matter alternatively you might like to consider raised beds and that's what I'm going to do here in fact I'm going to plant in the tubs in my situation I'm using this potting mix now this is a very good quality potting mix but I'm going to enrich it a bit with some cow manure and I'm just going to mix this cow manure through like so but whether in garden beds or pots don't be tempted to add too much compost or manure as you'll get rapid growth at the expense of flavor in your herbs one bag per square meter is a good starting point or as you saw with this in this entire wheelbarrow of potting mix buy added not even quite one bucket of manure so when you're filling your tub with your prepared potting mix what you need to do is bring the potting mix level up to the base of each of these pots place your pots in the position that you need them to be in I'm not going to do that for this particular one here we'll come back to that in a minute but once they're in the position then we can fill the potting mix around them and just watch what I do here now so now that we've got our potted mixture in place and it is firmed down I'm going to remove the pot I'll be left with a nice hole the size of the actual plant itself I can now remove the plant from the pot place it back into the hole and what we've managed to do there is to get the plant in place with minimal root disturbance and into the exact location in the pot that we want it to be I'm now going to repeat the process for this second plant and there we have it what I'm going to do now is I'm going to give a very very thin mulching of manure followed by an organic mulch like sugarcane mulch for example then I'll come back to plant these seedlings of parsley let's get this planet of parsley seedlings in here now it's always difficult to plant seedlings and then spread mulch around them so don't spread the mulch first and then spread open a little area and put the seedling in there watch what I do so with the seedlings out to separate a little bit of the mulch with your fingers dig a little hole to put the seedling in to firm down and then you can put the mulch around them repeat that process once you have your plants in the tub you need to finish it off with a good water with some seaweed emulsion giving them a good water with seaweed emulsion helps to minimize roots shock and of course it does help to get them established for providing you with that wonderful supply of fresh herbs for your kitchen so let's now talk about the longer-term care of your herbs firstly you will need to ensure that they don't dry out so regular watering is an absolute must how often will depend on your climate to keep an eye on the condition of the soil and water as often as is required to ensure that it doesn't dry out it must be kept moist also as you saw me do with the preparation of the herb bed a light mulch with manure cow manure is a good option and maintain on top of this layer and organic mulch both to help reduce evaporation from the soil and lastly ensure that you harvest your herbs regularly this is going to help insure that their growth habit remains strong and sturdy not to mention providing you with some wonderful herbs for your kitchen now I hope you've enjoyed this video can I please ask you to go down to the thumbs up and give us a thumbs up subscribe to this channel and go to our website I cultivate dotnet and become a member of the community it's there that you can continue the conversation further thanks for watching [Music]