Planting Your Herb Garden
With all your plans in place, your seeds in hand, and with all the information you need, planting your herb garden is the last step. When it comes to planting herb gardens, apart from all the other things to consider, you also have to consider your climate.
A naturally warm and sunny climate means you can plant your herbs at any time of the year, and they are likely to grow. Even during the colder months, if you're living in an area that doesn't snow, several herb plants respond well to cool weather. This is actually a great climate to plant your herbs in as you will have herbs all year round, and you can continuously replant. In case you face very harsh summers, be sure that your garden can be provided with a bit of shade, and that the plants don't dry out in the summer.
Most herb gardens are grown in colder places that do have winter, and this has to be taken into consideration when planting herb gardens. As mentioned before, some herb garden seeds need to be planted indoors four to six weeks before transplanting them into your garden. If you can determine when the frost will disappear, and how long it will take you to ready the soil of your garden, then you have a time frame as to when you can begin planting your seeds indoors.
Invest in some shallow boxes or biodegradable pots or some black plastic gardening bags. Buy some good soil mixed with mulch from your gardening store, and don't forget to put holes at the bottom of these containers so that the water can properly drain out. Keep your containers by windows that get a lot of sunlight, but make sure your sprouts don't get too cold. If sunlight is sparse you can get some grow lamps, but fluorescent lights can work too, as long as they still get a little bit of sun.
You don't have to do this just for herbs that need to start indoors. You can do this for all the herbs you intent to put into your garden, that way it will be easier for you to keep track of their growth and progress. As soon as the frost has melted away, begin tilling your soil and mixing in your fertilizer or compost. Create the holes that you will transplant your seedlings into. Water these to make sure it's moist then plant your seedlings in. Cover it well with soil and sprinkle some water over that too. You might want to put a little extra fertilizer to help your plants through the trauma of being transplanted. Do this in the morning or late afternoon when the sun is not too hot.
Some herbs, the grassy kinds like parsley don't do well being transplanted. You can plant the seeds directly into the ground, and not worry about them catching up to the other herbs because the grassy herbs grow very quickly, much quicker than most others. They'll be able to catch up soon enough. If you'd rather not plant the seeds into the ground, you can plant your grassy herbs in biodegradable pots of plastic gardening bags as these will make the transplanting process easier on your plants, and better for you!
