Herb Garden Information: Quick Tips To Start Your Own Home Herb Garden

Fresh herbs are a wonderful delight, especially for the cook. Do you want to have your own home herb garden? Below is the basic herb garden information you need to get your own garden started this weekend.n.

Plan your garden.

Consider the herbs you want to plant. Think about their types. Would you like annuals, biennials or perennials?

How much space will they occupy in your garden? If you want, you can purchase a book that can give you the right information on what specific plants you are planning to grow.

List or draw your garden on paper first. Separate the annuals from the perennials so when the time comes that you have to pull out the annuals, you won't be disturbing the perennials. Perennials can be planted on the edge of your garden so when it is time to till your garden they won't be in danger of getting dug up.

Another thing to remember is that you have to place the tall plants at the back and the shorter ones in front. Also, provide your plants with enough space to grow. Proper position will help you in this area.

If you would rather keep herbs out of your garden (and some are quite invasive) you could have herb pots. These are large containers with three or more outlets for the herbs. Fill the pot up to the first outlet and plant it before continuing on with the filling and planting process. Usually, the herb that requires the most water is planted in the bottom hole, while the variety that requires the least, goes in the highest hole.

Some Design Ideas

You can consider having a square herb bed. You can have your square bed divided into four by two paths crossing at mid point measuring 3 feet. You can border it with stone or brick. A wooden ladder may also do the trick. You can lay it down on your garden and plant your herbs between its rungs. You can also choose to have a wagon wheel bed. Planting here is like planting with the wooden ladders. Plant your herbs in between the wagon wheel's wedges.

Get Your Plants Growing

Of course, different plants have different needs, but many of them require alkaline soil. This is the reason why you have to determine the herbs you want to plant in the planning stage. This can more or less help you find out how you should care for your plants. If you germinate your herbs from seeds, remember to follow the directions on the packet for soil, watering and temperature.

Herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow. You just have to provide them with an effective drainage, sunlight, enough humidity or moisture and fertile soil. Even with just minimally meeting these requirements they will be bound produce a good harvest.

For more detailed information about starting a home herb garden, sign up for our free Secrets of Growing Fresh Herbs free mini-course on how to grow the freshest, healthiest and most delicious, herbs around or or visit http://growingfreshherbs.com to download a copy of "The Ultimate Guide to Growing Fresh Herbs."

Organic Gardening : 5 Simple Tips to Get You Started

Organic gardening does not just mean no chemicals, fungicides, insecticides, or herbicides, it means creating a natural balance in our gardens. Organic gardening starts with soil and that means recycling; recycling plants, weeds, flowers, vegetables, kitchen waste, newspapers and anything else that will break down into compost. Compost is the heart of organic gardening. What goes into the soil comes out as beautiful vegetables, flowers, shrubs and trees. Building and maintaining soil quality is the basis for successful organic gardening.

It is important to know your soil, as soil is the life of your garden. Plants require light, air, water, and nutrients. Your soil is the life force that feeds a balanced diet of nutrients to plants that help them fight off insect and soil born diseases.

An organic gardener strives to work with Mother Nature to keep harmony within the natural growing cycle. There are many ways to start organic gardening. Here are five quick and easy ways to start.

Getting Stated

Improving your soil is the first step to organic gardening and that means compost! Compost is not hard once you know how. Just look at our forests and grasslands. Mother Nature composts material everyday to keep a natural balance, yet our forests and grasslands are not buried beneath mounds of uncomposted material. The more time and trouble you put into composting, the less natural it becomes.

Start simple. Every garden has composting material. Start by making a pile of weeds you pulled, add trimmings from plants, grass clippings, kitchen waste, spent flowers, straw, hay, newspaper, cardboard boxes, and yes, even your junk mail. (To bad we can't put our junk email into our gardens). The smaller the pieces the faster it will decompose. Compost really contains all the nutrients plants need for their life cycle. Notice how Mother Nature doesn't use fertilizer, just good old fashion compost.

If you are an apartment dweller, you can still make compost. A small bucket (or large) can hold your kitchen waste, newspaper, junk mail, pizza crust, and spent flowers and plants. Remember to add equal amounts of green and brown material to make great compost. You can use Batch Banner, Pit-a-Plenty, Trough or Bin composting methods.

If you do not want to mess with making compost, your local landfill usually has compost for free. Just pick it up and mix into your garden. You can also buy compost at your local nursery or garden shop.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch!

Mulching reduces weeds, saves water and nourishes the soil. Notice how Mother Nature keeps our forests. She drops leaves, branches, and spent flowers on top of the soil and lets them pile up while the bottom decomposes. You can do the same.

Instead of raking up those leaves and throwing them way, run your mower over them to break them up and put them on your plants as mulch. They will not only reduce weeds and save water, they will put back nutrients while they biodegrade. You can also put them in a pile and they will biodegrade while they winter over supplying you with compost in time for spring planting.

Using rock, wood chips, beauty bark, or sand does nothing for the soil. But if you must use them, get them from your local landfill or a tree trimming company. They have tons of it and usually give it away free. Most store bought chips have been processed with chemicals to make them last longer.

Don't Panic at the First Sign of Bugs!

Pesticides kill almost any bug they touch including the good bugs that prey on the bad bugs. Bug killers do not differentiate between good and bad bugs. They kill them all! Birds, ladybugs, spiders, dragonflies, wasps, praying mantis, and worms eat harmful bugs. Bees and flies are the pollinators of our gardens...so be kind to them and Don't Panic!

If the bug damage is minor, there is no need to act. Sometimes a weather change or good bugs will take care of the problem. If you must use bug spray, make it a natural one. A little garlic water with a few drops of dish soap will usually take care of the problem. If not, cut the plant back to an inch above the ground and bury it in your compost heap and let it grow back.

Find a natural bug spray you like, or use companion planting. If left alone, Mother Nature usually takes care of her own. The good bugs will come along to eat the bad bugs. If you just cannot stand it, put the buggy plant in a clear plastic bag (after spraying with garlic water), for a couple of days but no longer than a week and not in direct sunlight. Remember though, we need bad bugs for good bugs to survive.

Don't Waste those Weeds!

It is impossible to rid a garden of weeds! Accept that you will always have some weeds. There, say it out loud...I will always have weeds! Now you can stop trying to get rid of those weeds. Instead of trying to get rid of weeds...use them to amend your soil!

Weeds require the same elements your beautiful garden does; light, air, water, and nutrients. Weeds are just better at pulling these elements from poor soil. If your soil is poor, meaning there is not enough organic matter, you will have a lot of weeds. Weeds find it very hard to grow in good organic soil but that is the way Mother Nature made them.

What we call weeds, Mother Nature calls fast composters. Where it takes a vegetable or flower 60 to 120 days to produce fruit or flower, some weeds can go from seed to flower in two weeks and then start over again. Weeds live and grow to help amend soil faster than leaves or plants because they biodegrade faster.

Weeds can pull nutrients from the poorest of soil but when they die down, they replenish the soil by decomposing and putting the nutrients back where other plants can use the nutrients. So rather than pulling weeds and throwing them away, try tilling them back into the soil to create organic matter that your vegetables need.

Water, Water, Water!

There are chemicals everywhere! The roof of your house has been chemically treated to withstand Mother Nature. The paint on your house is treated with chemicals, your concrete driveway leaches chemicals, your automobile leaks gas and oil, pesticides, weed killers, man made fertilizers, and a host of other chemically treated objects all work to contaminate our water supply. Chemicals disrupt the ecosystem by killing the millions of micro-organism, fungi, and other bacteria Mother Nature uses to biodegrade plant matter. You can help by using these methods to conserve and help purify your water supply.

All plants appreciate a gentle and thorough watering. Letting plants get wilted before watering stresses them and makes them open season for bugs and diseases. Using a slow drip system will supply constant water. A low tech drip system consists of a gallon/liter size juice or milk jug. Poke a few holes in the bottom with a pin, fill it with water and sit it beside your plant, shrub, or tree. Loosen the lid to release the pressure and the water will drip out slowly right where the plant needs it the most; the roots.

Rain barrels are the most efficient of water collectors. Connect them to your downspout to collect water from your roof or connect them together. As the average home yields over 200 gallons of wasted water from the roof, using a rain barrel to collect it will save water when you need it for your organic garden.

Another method is a rain garden or bog garden. Rain gardens are holding areas for water that will not run into our already stressed water sewer systems. It will hold the rain water and let it seep into the ground while purifying it at the same time.

So that is it...5 ways to organic gardening. Mother Nature has provided for us for millions of years by recycling. Recycling plant waste is the basis for organic gardening. It is the heart of Mother Nature and it behooves us to follow her direction for our organic gardens. Good luck and enjoy your organic garden.

Kitchen Herb Garden : How to Make a Simple Home Herb Garden

Herbs can play a key role in even the smallest of gardens. While some are simply there as decoration, most are fragrant, and far from being imposing so the can easily be used to bring life to those odd corners of a garden that will accommodate little else.

Let us not forget, however, that herbs are enormously healthy, and can bring even the blandest of ingredients to life. Once you have experienced home cooking with fresh herbs that you have just snipped from a ripe branch in your kitchen garden, you will never regard the dried, commercial variety in quite the same way again. You will also be pleasantly surprised how economical fresh herbs and vegetables can be.

Apart from the undeniable satisfaction of growing one's own produce, home herb and vegetable gardening allows you to ensure your cultivation methods are as organic as they can be, which, in turn means that you can dine in the knowledge that all your produce is free from chemicals, and is as healthy as it possibly can be for you and your family.

Assuming that you already have some garden area you can use for herbs, or you can even use containers successfully, there are only fours ingredients you need to cook up a thriving herb garden of your own. Those ingredients are:

(1) A high-quality soil, rich in humus
(2) Sunlight
(3) Regular watering
(4) A little of your time

Now, if you find that your existing soil is unsuitable, you can easily remedy the situation by planting in raised beds, or even more easily, in containers. It depends on how much space you have and how ambitious a herb gardener you wish to become. Simply fill your raised beds or containers with good, organic compost and you are ready to begin planting.

If, on the other hand, you are reclaiming an un-cared for or overgrown garden, try tackling smaller areas at a time. Conquer one area, and once your herbs and vegetables are thriving, move on to another area, and reclaim your land in stages, rather than trying to take on the entire task all at once.

The secret is to start small, no matter how you intend to plant your herb garden. Don't be too over-ambitious, especially if you are a beginner, because you will run the risk of making too many mistakes, and ending up with little to show for it.

First, select herbs that you already know will thrive in your environment. You would be better off choosing the more hardy herbs to start with anyway. Consult a gardening book or visit your local garden center to ascertain which herbs are best for your climate and garden's conditions. Remember to check whether your garden catches a lot of sunlight or whether it is shaded, because this will affect how your plants grow if they are not suited to their growing spots.

Keep it simple at first, and then build up your garden as you gain more and more experience, and in no time you will be enjoying the wonderful flavors and health benefits herbs can afford you and your family for years to come.

For more information about growing your own kitchen herb garden, visit growingfreshherbs.com

Garden Water Fountain: Adding Beauty and Tranquility

If you're looking for a soothing and aesthetically appealing addition to your garden, then you should consider adding a garden water fountain. Nothing is more relaxing than enjoying sitting on a garden bench and listening to the calming sounds of a water fountain! In addition to the beauty a foundation brings to any garden, installing a water feature is fairly simple and a worth-while investment. Another advantage is the minimal amount of maintenance required to keep your foundation running smoothly and looking beautiful after it's installed.

Fountains are typically installed for the natural ambiance they bring to life, even in the blandest of outdoor gardens. You can always feel a positive vibe soaking in a gorgeous water scene. For those practicing Tai Chi or other forms of yoga, the constant drone of the water enhances one's ability to concentrate and focus on meditating. Even those not honing in on their mediation skills appreciate the meditative quality garden fountains offer.

Before installing a garden water fountain, you should give some serious thought into selecting one that will nicely complement the rest of your garden’s theme. You should take into consideration the existing motif of the other decorative items found in your garden.

For example, does the fountain you're considering match the other decorations or does it look totally out of place? For nature lovers who may be a bit challenged when it comes to designing might consider asking someone more naturally inclined to help with design plans. You may also try searching online for water fountain themes and decorating ideas as well as do-it-yourself fountain projects.

Occasionally garden lovers installing a fountain may encounter technical difficulties, especially when supplying fountains with power electricity in cases where the garden isn't in close proximity to a power supply. To avoid tacky eyesores, and more importantly dangers, from running long extension cords, it's often necessary to come up with safer solutions. With the help of your local Home Depot or other home improvement store, you can find the perfect solution in the form of an extension cord that can be buried.

After purchasing, all you need to do is dig a small trench across the yard from your garden to the nearest power supply. Although it may require a few hours of minimal labor, you don't have to worry about unsightly cords cluttering up your yard and distracting from the beauty of your garden!

If you're interested in adding a natural beauty and tranquility to your outdoor space, a garden water fountain offers both at affordable prices to fit any budget. Fountains also add unique character to an otherwise boring garden. There are numerous styles, colors and themes of foundations for you to shop from. Remember, when you hear the word garden, it isn't just used to describe those for growing vegetables! Nature lovers have enjoyed all the benefits gardens have to offer for centuries. Best enjoyed as a place to retreat to after a long day and dwell peacefully in your own little place on Earth to enjoy your thoughts with no interruptions!

Interested in purchasing a garden water foundation?  CLICK HERE.