The Benefits of Having Your Own Home Herb Garden
Having a home herb garden gives its gardener many varying benefits. While gardening may require a considerable amount of work, having a home herb garden is useful in more ways than one. When starting a home herb garden, think about what you'd like to use your herbs for. This will give you good direction as to what kind of herbs will be found in your future home herb garden. You'll find that many herbs have more uses than you probably ever could have imagined!
Cooking
In general, herbs are used for cooking. Many home herb garden herbs supply their respective households with fresh or dried flavors for a innumerable dishes. Some of the more popular herbs for cooking and their common combinations are basil for pasta sauces, oregano to season beef, thyme for pork, tarragon for fish, sage for potatoes, and rosemary for lamb. If you're enthusiastic about cooking, check out what herbs are used commonly in your favorite type of cuisine, and choose to grow some of these plants. A lot of herbs are great when used fresh, and you'll love having the fresh herbs around.
Home Remedies
Herbs have been used as home remedies for years. To this day, old nannies have their simple herbal tricks taken from their home herb garden to help soothe many an illness. Chewing mint is commonly used, and has been proven great for bad breath, while gargling with water boiled with sage has been known to whiten teeth. Ginseng or chamomile teas are both great for soothing stress or calming you down after a long day, while chamomile also treats upset stomachs for little children. These quick remedies are organic and natural, and are a wonderful use of your home herb garden.
Beauty Tricks
Herbs can create really wonderful and natural beauty tricks. Making your own tea tree oil for zits will be difficult, but other herbs are easy to use. Mostly they are used for the skin and hair. One of the old tricks for aloe vera is to break off some leaves of the aloe vera plant and squeeze out the gel. You can apply this gel directly onto sunburn, and it soothes the skin while keeping it well moisturized and supple. You can also mix this gel with a little bit of water and apply it onto any type of hair. It helps with softness and shine. Some water boiled with broken or crushed rosemary leaves in it is a great for rinsing the hair out.
House Keeping
The smell of herbs around the home can be very soothing, and you can use various herbs to not only soothe your senses but also to keep your home sweet smelling and bug free. Lavender is great to keep in the towel or linen closet and it will keep your towels and linens smelling lovely. Dill naturally freshens the air, while eucalyptus and neem drive away insects. You may also keep basil by the windowsill of your kitchen. The fragrance of fresh basil is really nice in a kitchen, as many people associate it with some popular dishes.
Herbs truly have many uses. No matter what you choose to employ your home herb garden for, chances are you will end up using the herbs and plants for many other uses as you learn about all the secrets of herb gardening.
