While the sun is still shining, now is the perfect time to plant herbs – and enjoy the wonderful flavour and health benefits they bring to your meals. Here's how to do it…
Choose a Sunny Spot
You don't need a lot of room to grow your own herbs. You can pop them on the windowsill, in a raised veggie garden, on an apartment balcony or at the back of your block.
Just ensure the planting place gets loads of sunshine. You want your herbs to drink in at least 6 hours of sunshine each day – although some herbs such as coriander and mint can handle a little shade.
Drain Your Herbs
It's really important to ensure your herbs are planted using proper soil drainage. This can be as simple as holes in the bottom of the plant pots. And ensure you use a quality potting mix, as this can affect the health of your herbs.
Mulching is also key for moisture and keeping pests away.
Balance Your Fertiliser
As well as mulch and potting mix, you'll want to fertilise your herbs. You only need to do this sparingly – once every 3 or 4 weeks. However, if you've used a quality organic soil, you may be able to avoid this step.
Give Your Herbs Plenty to Drink
Herbs need water to grow – like any plant. While your baby herbs grow, keep the soil moist. Then you will only need to give them a drink once a week or so.
Give Them Room to Move
When planting your herbs, ensure you keep some space between each one, so they can breathe and grow without inteference from other plants.
Choosing Your Herbs
There are many delicious herbs you can plant in Australia. Some popular options are coriander, mint, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil and chives.
Whichever herbs you choose, you'll no doubt notice they have a freshness and flavour hit that just doesn't come from store-bought herbs.
And if you're anything like me, you won't be throwing out heaps of herbs each week because you weren't able to use them all in time. That's good for your wallet and the environment.
Originally published on Jan 16, 2015
