Growing Your Herbs
In general herbs are easy to grow. Sufficient sunlight and proper watering is mostly what you will need to do when growing herbs. Remember that your herbs want a moist environment, not a wet one.
Be mindful of what your plants look like. Familiarize yourself with what a healthy herb plant looks like, depending on the type of herb it is. You don't want anything wilting, as this means that the plant is not getting enough water. If your herbs are in containers, and they are wilting despite the fact that you are watering them, check to see on how compact the soil is, as this can be a factor. You may also want to remove it from hard sunlight for a few days, though still putting it in a relatively sunny spot.
When growing herbs, making sure your soil is in prime condition is important. As mentioned before, use fertilizers (liquid ones are good with herbs), or take some from your compost pit, or use coffee grounds. It's all about growing herbs that are happy!
Decide if you'd like to buy new seeds every year or if you'd like to harvest some seeds from your growing herbs. Fresh herbs are wonderful when cooking, or for various uses around the house. However, herbs tend to lose their flavor once they begin to flower. The flavor of the leaves become bitter. If you don't want your herbs to lose their flavor, cut off their flowering tops when you see them. Cutting off these tops prolongs the life of your herb plant in terms of you being able to harvest the herb itself. The only downside to removing the flowering tops is that the herb plant will never produce seeds. If you do want to be able to harvest some seeds from some plants, let them flower and bloom so you can harvest the seeds from the plant. You can re-plant these seeds next year. Do this for a plant with especially good flavor. Cutting is also an option. You can create other mini plants, depending on the type of herb you are growing. Remember that not all herb plants can be planted with cuttings.
Like other plants, growing herbs also deals with weeding them. Plants don't like weeds in general because weeds take the nutrients that a plant needs. As a good gardener, you want your herb plants to maximize the nutrients in the soil and water. You know you have a weed problem or sick herb plants when your plants' leaves start to fade in color. Check for weeds twice a week and remove the tiny ones as soon as you see them. Be sure that you get all of the weed, little roots included. Never let those weeds get large enough for you to have to dig for the roots.
Growing herbs need some loving care and some patience. It may be a daunting challenge in the beginning, but most gardeners get the hang of it, and the benefits of having fresh herbs are well worth all the tiny troubles!
