The Secret to Identifying Herbs in Timeless, Classic Style
Starting an herb garden is a satisfying way to include fresh ingredients in your everyday cooking. Most herbs produce continually, making it easy to snip off some oregano, thyme or parsley for your latest recipe. Identifying herbs, however, can be tricky. Many have similar leaf shapes and grow at the same pace, making it a trick to choose the right one if you haven’t marked them well.
Here are a few tips for starting your herb garden, including suggestions for identifying herbs:
Choose your herb garden’s location strategically. Many cooks enjoy having their herb garden within a few steps of the kitchen, in case they need to snip a few herbs while dinner is simmering on the stove. You may want to balance this thought with accessibility to a water source, as watering can be a frequent task if you live in a hot, dry climate.
You will also want to choose a location that receives at least six hours of direct sun each day, and one that has adequate drainage. If your herbs sit in soil that doesn’t drain well, you’ll quickly have rotting plants.
Evaluate and adjust your soil. Before you plant your herbs, take a look at the soil where you plan to install your herb garden. Is the soil filled with heavy concentrations of clay, or is it a little sandy? You may want to add compost in order to achieve good results.
It’s important to note that you should avoid using composted manure in your herb garden because it has a high concentration of nitrogen. While it will cause your herbs to grow quickly, it will also rob them of their flavor.
Choose herbs you’ll enjoy. There are so many options for herbs that you may find it difficult to decide on a small variety for a starter garden. Many novice herb gardeners choose popular items like chive, dill, oregano, rosemary, mint and basil.
You may be tempted to shy away from snipping herbs out of your garden, believing you’ll tax the plant too much and impede growth. The opposite is actually true, with frequent trimming encouraging increased growth.
Invest in markers for identifying herbs. Keeping your herbs identified correctly can be a challenge, depending on how large a variety you choose to plant. It may seem, at planting time, that you could never mix up your herbs, but one botched recipe may be all it takes to feel regret about not taking time to label them well.
This is a good time to invest in high quality, reusable plant markers for identifying herbs. You will love the way they look, adding a bit of official organization to your herb garden, and you’ll enjoy using them year after year.
Our markers at Kincaid Plant Markers are known for their high quality craftsmanship and their attractive presentation. You’ll love using our markers year after year to organize your herbs. Check out our selection on our website.
