Feeling At Home with Your Herb Garden

Image via Wikipedia

Getting started with making a home herb garden is as easy at sticking a kernel of corn or a bean in some potting soil in a Dixie Cup and watch it sprout several days later. It is as simple as that. Of course, you will need to maintain it, but that is not much more complicated. You just apply diligence and some consistency! The basics are, you need to:

learn what they need for nutrition ;
learn when and how much water is best ; and
learn in what kind of environment they like to spend their day.

That is all there is to it.

That’s not all there is to herbs , though. Let’s start by defining herb. An herb “is a seed-producing annual, biennial, or perennial that does not develop persistent woody tissue but dies down at the end of a growing season. It is a plant or parts of various plants cultivated for their aromatic, pungent, or otherwise desirable substances. Spices and herbs consist of rhizomes, bulbs, barks, flower buds, stigmas, fruits, seeds, and leaves. They are commonly divided into the categories of spices, spice seeds, and herbs.”

The history of herbs goes back to our earliest civilizations, China, Egypt and India. Chinese medicine has a long history of employing a wide variety of herbs in its concoctions. Herbs were used in the embalming fluids in Egypt. Ayurveda has combined herbs for both diet and medicine for millenia.

Spices and herbs still have their place in medicine today, even in established Western medicine. Plants contain many phytochemicals , such as beta-carotene, that affects the body. However, care and education is necessary when using herbs for medical purposes . While they may be consumed in small amounts to spice up your dinner, some herbs can be toxic in larger quantities, e.g. extracts of St. John’s-wort or kava, used for relief of depression and stress. Larger amounts can result in serious toxicity. And yet, any modern drugs have their origins in herbal medicines.

The essential oils of these herbs is what make them so valuable . Thus, herbs are used widely in processed meats, sausages, sauces, vinegars, mustards, pickles, chutneys, preserves, salad dressings, biscuits, cookies, cakes, confections, and beverages as well as a number of liqueurs like absinthe, anisette, benedictine, and others. They are used in everyday consumables like perfume, cosmetics, toiletries, lotions, hair products, toothpastes, and soaps.

Most of us are interested in herbs for their culinary use. The culinary use of herbs employs the leafy part of the plant or the seeds and is used in relatively small amounts to provide flavor and not as food itself.

Herbs are annuals – such as basil and chervil; biennials – such as parsley; or perennials – such as thyme or lavender and shrubs like rosemary and trees like bay laurel. Some plants are used as both spice (the seed) and herb (the leaf), such as dill seed and dill weed or coriander seeds and coriander leaves (cilantro). Chamomile tea uses the flower . Mints has both as culinary and medicinal purposes.

You can create your herb garden anywhere in your home, out-of-doors in a garden, in pots on a terrace or balcony, or in a container on the windowsill of your kitchen. When done with a bit of inventiveness, your herb garden will enhance the look of any spot you put it, filling the space with its fragrance and beauty!

So when you are ready to start a herb garden and you need herb garden design ideas go to the link below…