[shaun]

does anybody grow herbs
i have grown this year
basil (a bit hit and miss realy only half germinated)
parsley flat leaf and the curled one (very pleased with both)
chives (died in the heat in july)
corriander(had a bit of it then it ran to seed very quickly when we were on holiday)
any tips on what herbs can be grown in a green house over winter

[GrannieAnnie]

Hi Shaun, I've grown all those you mentioned on my kitchen windowsill during winter, until I forget to water them!!!!!

[wellingtons]

... create a herb bed at my allotment, just inside the gate.  For two reasons, firstly because I use a lot of herbs in cooking and secondly because I wanted it to look pretty!  I made raised beds and improved the drainage with gravel.

In my herb bed I have

Rosemary - doing really well, despite regularly picking.  Two plants total.

Bronze fennel - second year seedlings from my garden at home.  Brilliant, 5 feet tall and like a theme park for bees and hoverflies!

Basil - patchy germination from seeds, but now going strong.  Two different types

Sage - plants from garden centre and one rescued from compost heap!  All doing really well.

Thyme - plants - 2 different types.  Bees just love these.

Borage - seeds planted indoors early in the season. Gorgeous plants, needing staking early on, but growing really well now.  

Chives - plants from my garden.  Did really well, suffered a little in the heat, but still going strong

Oregano - plant from garden centre.  This is the only plant that I thought I might lose, may be a sickly specimen though, but I'm nursing it through!

Coriander - germinated well from seed, but needs successional sowing to get the quantities I use.  Was fast to run to seed though, but that's all good because you can harvest and use the seeds too!

Bay tree - second year.  Really doing well.

Mint - not a great success because I've restricted it's roots in pots and it's dried out more quickly than anything else.  Fortunately I have a good supply at home.

Parsley - brilliant, but I went a bit overboard and have a 10 foot row of the stuff!  Someone said it was a * to germinate ...

I have other bits and pieces in my herb bed ... lettuce, to fill the holes and keep the weeds down.  Heartease, because it's pretty.   Hop flowered oregano, very pretty.  Chamomile and feverfew, because I just love the smell and flowers.

[Jake]

Blimey wellingtons, that is most impressive.

Sage took over my herb barrel. The rosemary still lived, tangled up in the sage but everything else was out competed. In seperate little pots we have mint and chives. These do well.

Thyme always dies on me and I'm rubbish at basil from seed, we always buy the plant which only lasts about 6 weeks. Grown from seed it always flowers and goes bitter.

[mum of 3]

i cheated with my herbs,i bought the rooted ones from asda salad dept,and then planted them in my plot,to my surprise theyve done really well and only cost around 56p each.

[wellingtons]

... it either flourishes or dies for me.  No inbetween.

The one herb I find really frustrating is the corsican mint, the tiny low growing one a bit like mint scented mind your own business.  I bought two plants years ago to put at the base of my pergola in the garden.  It struggled for a while and then died ... but the stuff has somehow managed to self seed all around the garden in the gravel and in between the paving slabs ... which is wonderful, but will the flipping stuff grow where I want it ... no it will not!

[Heather_S]

Not much grows in the winter months, even in greenhouse, due to less light around. You could start off with some hardy woody herbs like thyme and sage. Give them light protection with some fleece this winter as they've probably not had time to establish if planted this late in the year.
I currently grow:
Sage (grown from seed)
Purple Sage (bought, only way to go for the Purple/Red cultivars)
Thyme (grown from seed)
Golden Thyme (bought)
Oregano (grown from seed)
Mint (bought, spearmint and black peppermint)
Calendula/ Pot Marigold (grown from seed)
Feverfew (bought)
Dyer's Chamomile (bought)
Chives (grown from seed originally, now I have millions of the *****s every year when I divide the plants up)
Sweet Cicley (bought)
Soapwort (bought, couldn't get it to grow from seed)
Comfrey (bought)
Nigella, both nigella damascena and nigella sativa (bought the N. Sativa, grew from seed the N. damascena)
Good King Henry (bought)
Dianthus (bought, edible flowers)
Borage (grew from seed, decided to grow to a monsterous size, horribly painfully pointy stems and leaves. Had to hoe off its selfseeded seedlings yesterday).
Tree Onion (bought)
Basil 'Purple Ruffles' (sown)
Coriander (seeds the only way to go)
Wormwood (sown)
Rosemary (bought)
Bay trees. I have lots of little ones I bought from B&Q. 10 little seedlings/saplings in one pot for £2.50. Lost one or two but the other 8 are doing well.
I think that's all of them!

Tried Dill twice but the snails and slugs got it and then the borage next to it grew too big. Going to try to grow it again in rootrainer plugs next year until they're a reasonable healthy size.
Really can't seem to get perilla/shisho to grow. I buy seed from everywhere and sow it like basil and it doesn't grow  :roll: I might try autumn sowing. Otherwise I've read the seeds go dormant for 2-3 years so I might just store them and try very hard to forget them for a few years.
Also I don't buy the plants from supermarkets because they're usually about 20+ little seedlings forced to grow together in a 4inch pot. If you plant them out, they just flop over, much like the chickens bred to have lots of breast meat just fall over from how they're grown.

I cleared out the nigella bed yesterday so I've been looking in my big herb garden book for ideas of what to put in next. If I can't decide in the next few days, I'll just sow a green manure in the patches of bare soil.

Sometimes I wish I could have one of the neighbouring plots for a full herb garden and try to grow everything imaginable   I find herbs fascinating and I like the stories behind them all, even if a lot of them no longer have a modern use.

[wellingtons]

... can I ask what you do with the nigella ... just use the seeds??

[BillinPA]

... can I ask what you do with the nigella ... just use the seeds??

It's a spice kinda like cumin check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigella  

[shaun]

very impressive collection of herbs you have there heather and wellys
its a wonder you have time to grow anything else
do you use them all ?
on the invasive issue i have mint in a small dustbin with the bottom cut out and burried 8" in the soil (none have escaped yet)
if you could only grow 5 herbs what would they be ?

[milkman]

I have sage, rosemary and a bay tree.  Would love to be able to grow oodles of basil but find it involves too much effort for my liking, must also get round to sourcing some fresh garden mint from the plotters-next-door - I think that adds up to 5.

[Heather_S]

"black cumin" is one of the misnamings it has.
The next time you're in an indian restaurant, look closely at the naan breads... those small black seeds are from nigella sativa. So I'm hoping to add them to homemade naan breads. Apparently the garden Nigella/Love In The Mist doesn't have as good of flavour.
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Nige_sat.html

I'm slowly storing up the seeds as the seedheads dry out. I do pick and sometimes dry my herbs. Some of my herb collection is not for consumption so they don't get used, as such. Other parts of the herb collection are still growing so I'm not harvesting yet.

Mint, Sage, Thyme, Rosemary and Chives would be my top 5 useful most used herbs. Rather traditional but they do get used a lot and fresh sage is wonderful to smell. Also you save a bundle of money growing your own herbs as the herbs will always be fresh and you'll not waste/need more than one of those little plastic bags of fresh herbs. Most herbs are cheaper to grow even if you have to buy the herbs from a good nursery.

[Heather_S]

I should point out that herbs tend to be very hardy and don't have the pest problems that veggies do usually, so I actually enjoy them more than the other plants. I ignore them and they get on with growing and looking pretty, smelling nice and occasionally tasting nice too  

[mellowmick]

Is lemon balm a herb? I'm growing it, but have no idea how to use it. The crushed leaves smell incredible.

[Heather_S]

Yes it's a herb, though in my past experience, it grows in a more hardy and invasive way than mint (!! it killed off a neighbouring mint plant back in the parents' garden!) and the smell always reminds me of lemon-scented furniture polish  :? So as much as it's a common herb, I'm not going to use because it reminds me of furniture polish :oops: I don't particularly like the taste of lemongrass either, it's a similar "fake" lemon taste to me. I'm just weird  :roll:
Here's some suggestions from Practical Herb Garden by Jessica Houdret

"* Chicken Lemon balm - Use handfuls of the fresh leaves to stuff the body cavity of a chicken, and sit it on a further bed of leaves before roasting it, to keep flesh moist and impart a subtle lemon flavour.

* Orange and lemon balm salad - Snip fresh lemon balm over pealed, thinly sliced oranges, sprinkled with a mixture of fresh orange and lemon juice, sweetened with honey.

*Carmelite cordial - Lemon balm was one of the chief ingredients of Carmelite water, which also included lemon peel, nutmeg and angelica root - said to be  the favourite tipple of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500-1558)"

Medical uses are as a sedative, relaxing properties so for nervous anxiety, depression, etc. Also has insect-repellent properties, is anti-virial and antibaterical so can be applied externally on wounds/stings/bites.
Culinary uses include being added into salads, soups, sauces, stuffings, poultry, game & fish dishes, dorials, liqeuers and wine cups.

Now I'm reconsidering my position on lemon balm... I do have some empty space in the herb row...  :roll: