All about herbs and herb gardens.
Planted our very first lemon tree as a centre-piece in a herb garden and she is beginning to show her true colours! Spritely mauve. Bright yellow. Pure white. And of course, a delightful lemon green.
Dug the hole to around just below knee depth. Dropped in two heaped shovels of compost at the bottom. Four heaped shovels of potting soil. Then made a hole in the centre and added the lemon tree. Patted the soil down. Added water. Let Mother Nature do the rest.
As we always say, you don’t need a garden to have a home herb garden. There are loads of items you can simply collect, bash around a little and create a perfect container for herbs to flourish in.
Like these cut tree stumps.
Simply draw a rough pencil line around the edge – the width you’d like the holes to be. You can also make different shapes like cutting a square or a rectangle into the circular tree stump.
Now, get your drill out and start drilling holes! You could also use a chisel and a wooden mallet – this takes way longer – but it’s very therapeutic as you sit there bashing away. A nice project for an upcoming holiday, perhaps.
Dig the holes quite deep so you can put enough potting soil into them. Remember, the water will seep out, but very slowly, so be mindful not to over water your tree stump herb pots. Otherwise you may need to drill a hole from the bottom so the water can run out more freely. (Herbs should always be watered lightly every 2 to 4 days).
Try and get stumps of various thicknesses and heights so you can create really interesting looking home herb garden pots that stand next to one another but are at various levels. You could even get stumps from different species of trees from your local tree feller to make the herb pots more interesting.
Then there were seeds. Loads and loads of mustard seeds. From seeds to seeds we watched them grow. Our first mustard plant in our home herb garden.
The pods started turning green and then dried out. We were advised to break the pods open before they started opening by themselves. So we freed the seeds after the pods had turned brown after a few days – and there they were. Some were still green. Most were a beautiful mustard yellow.
Now we dry them out and crush them to make a fine garden-made mustard powder.
So exciting! Our first mustard plant in our home herb garden is seeding. Never experienced this before. Watched it from the beginning. Planted the tiny seeds and it grew to creating beautiful yellow sphere flowers.
Then small pointy-ended pods starting sprouting directly off the stems. Little bumps starting forming inside the pods inside these and this is where, guessing from our side, the mustard seeds are being produced. Three different types of seeds can be produced – black, brown or white mustard seeds. All are bitter and only reveal their true flavour when they are crushed.
The small yellow blooms contain a mild, delicious mustardy flavour. These can be picked and sprinkled onto sandwiches or tossed into salads. (Young green leaves can also be added to salads).
Will keep you posted on when we open the mustard pods, which need to be picked before they open in late summer.
And just like that the small yellow buds on our first ever mustard plant in the home herb garden have blossomed into beautiful yellow spheres with delicate tissue-soft leaves. Small rocket shaped pods are also growing off the stems inside which we think the germination of the mustard seeds will be taking place.
We’re keeping a very keen eye on our new mustard plant. It’s the first one we’ve ever grown in our home herb garden.
This mustard plant is sprouting. And sprouting! Looking very impressive. And looks like it may not want to stop. So we’ll have to do some snipping back pretty soon.
What’s really great about a mustard plant is that almost everything can be eaten… the shoots, the leaves, the flowers… and of course, those delicious tasting and nutritional mustard seeds.
If you’ve ever planted Basil in your herb garden you’ll know by now, sadly, Basil withers and dies out 
very quickly when the weather turns a little on the cold side. But, that shouldn’t stop you from growing one of the best herbs around.
During the winter months you should bring a Basil plant indoors – preferably on your window sill, right in the kitchen. In a pot, of course. Where you can quickly snip off a few leaves while cooking.
Great for pasta. Or tear them up and drop into your home garden fresh salads.
Bugs running riot in your home herb garden? Leaving bite holes in the Basil and other herbs?
Don’t let the little critters get to you this time.
Make a quick homemade bug off mixture of 1 cup vinegar, 5lt water and a small squirt of Sunlight Lemon Scented Dishwashing Liquid. Pour this into a little squirt jar and spray this over all your herbs.
You could also give your home herb garden this treatment once a month – even if there aren’t any bugs in sight.
Mint going mad. Completely. Keep your mint bushes under control by pulling leaves, roots, stalks and stems out regularly.
Otherwise, before you know it, your home herb garden will be overrun by mint. Seriously, this total grow-over happens before you’ve completed spelling the word mint.
Too much water is not good for home herb gardens. Nor is the cold. And as we go into winter we’re experiencing both at the moment. Herbs start wilting and the plant leaves begin to go yellow as the water levels increase.
An overload of water creates sloshy mud and the herb root system literally starts drowning – that’s why it is crucial that when you start planning and digging your home herb garden, make sure you have a good drainage system for your herbs’ roots.
Bullet Chilli bushes are empty the one week; then they’re literally hanging over because of the weight the next week. Fat, shiny little numbers just begging to be picked. Bullet chillies are great for making chunky chilli sauces. They’re the best picked directly from your very own home herb garden.
The plumper your bullet chillies, the more strain is placed on the chilli bush stem. Simply push a wooden dowel rod into the soil next to the chilli stem to hold the chilli bush upright.
And just like that the home herb garden can hardly contain the amount of basil as the herb plant sprouts it leaves and branches in and around all the other herbs.
A fair sprinkling of fertiliser and natural waters from the heavens – nothing gets a home herb garden growing quite like a good splattering of natural water from above. Basil is back!
Home Herb Gardens 