Tuesday 29 September 2009

A new herb garden is born!

Here are some pictures from the new herb garden - everything is settling in well and it looks lovely. What went in... lemon verbena, lemon and common thyme, roman and german chamomile, calendula (as if you could miss it!), lemon balm, rosemary, sage, mint, peppermint, oregano, chives, yarrow, flat leaf parsley, hyssop ... I think that's it! The comfrey and white horehound we're having to grow from seed as I wasn't able to get any plants. The yarrow is achillea cassis, which I think means it has cherry red flowers!



I look forward to lots of nice herby cooking and teas when visiting. :-)

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Sunday 6 September 2009

Planning a herb garden

My poor neglected blog! You'll (hopefully) be glad to know that I haven't got any less "herb-y" in my blog absence, I've just been really busy with other things.

One of the herbal things I'm working on at the moment is planning a small herb garden for my mum, who is turning her whole garden over to growing fruit and vegetables. I've been using a really helpful book called "Growing 101 herbs that heal" by Tammi Hartung, which takes you right through the steps of planning a herb garden (and which, funnily enough, was given to me as a gift years and years ago by none other than my mum!)

Now she's a busy lady so the focus of this garden is on herbs for cooking and for teas - no potion making (unless I'm visiting and just happen to have a bottle of apple cider vinegar stashed in my bag ;-). I've suggested some of the teas that could be made up on the plan below. As Christine has a tendency towards respiratory complaints such as bronchitis and coughs, I've included a couple of herbs specifically for this: white horehound and hyssop. These are not herbs I've used before so I look forward to meeting them.

Here is the rough plan I've drawn up (click on it to view larger):


Next week I'll be off to the Herb Centre at Banbury to go herb shopping - how lovely! I shall give some progress updates and photos from the garden once its planted.

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