To grow herbs, you don’t even need a garden

By JESSICA DAMIANO Associated Press

CULINARY HERBS ARE among the easiest plants you can grow. They only need sunlight, water, and well-draining soil with a neutral pH.

You don’t even need a garden. Many herbs, such as rosemary, basil, cilantro, lemon balm, oregano and mint will grow well in containers. In fact, mints should only be grown in containers, unless you don’t mind a garden takeover.

To get started, test your soil. Buy a pH test kit online or at your local garden center and follow the instructions. A reading of 7.0 is ideal, but anything between 6.0 and 7.5 is generally acceptable for growing herbs. If the soil tests lower, add garden lime to raise it. If it’s too high, add elemental sulfur to lower it. Follow package directions for dosages and instructions.

If growing herbs in containers, use a potting mix intended

Toads

CONTINUES FROM PAGE F2 them by avoiding the use of chemicals in and around the garden. Even common bug sprays can harm them, so make sure to apply those far away from the toad’s home.

Della Togna says the most helpful thing people can do for toads is simply get to know them. “There’s often a social or cultural component to people not liking amphibians,” she says.

Beliefs persist that toads can give you warts (false) or that they’re poisonous to the touch. The latter is half true: When threatened, they can secrete a toxin from lumpy glands behind their eyes. It’s harmful if swallowed, but if you use caution with kids and dogs and wash your hands after any contact, says Della Togna, you should have nothing to worry about.

Toads are creatures of habit: If they find a home they like, they might stay more than a for edibles. The package label should include information about its pH level.

Select a site that receives at least six hours of direct sunlight daily. If your garden has sandy or heavy clay soil, incorporate a moderate amount of compost into the top 6-8 inches to stabilize drainage. If the soil is perpetually soggy, remove the top 12-15 inches of soil, then add a 3” layer of crushed stone to the bottom of the hole. Mix some compost with the soil you removed and use the combined medium to refill the hole, creating a mound at the top (it will settle in time).

If you’re using seedlings, whether started indoors or purchased at the nursery, plant them according to the spacing recommendations on their plant tags or seed packet. Some herbs are well-suited for direct sowing into the garden; check seed packs for guidance. Herbs will not grow well in wet conditions, so allow the soil to dry out slightly between waterings. They also taste better when grown without fertilizer. For this reason, don’t overdo the compost when amending the soil to improve drainage. Chervil, summer savory, fennel and lovage are exceptions, as they do benefit from modest fertilizer applications.

Annual herbs complete their life cycles – from seed to senescence, or death – in a single growing season. They include basil, cilantro, dill, chamomile and marjoram.

Perennial herbs, which return for multiple growing seasons, include rosemary, thyme, sage, tarragon and oregano.

Biennials, like caraway and parsley, live for two growing seasons, producing only foliage during their first year, then flowers and seeds in their second before dying.

However, if they aren’t hardy enough to survive your winters, you may have to treat some listed perennials as annuals. In my New York garden, that’s usually rosemary, although I decade. “People want to know if they have the same toad coming back night after night or even year after year,” says Benard.

“If you look carefully, they have unique spot patterns on their back that can let you identify one individual from another.”

When her children were young, Berger recalls a toad — or maybe several of them — that was the long-term tenant of a terracotta hut in a corner of her herb garden. “The kids would go and check on it, and sometimes he’d be home and sometimes he’d be out,” she says. “It was really fun for them to have this wild sort of ‘pet’ that they could see and interact with.”

Toad husbandry isn’t hard, says Della Togna, and every gardener can help make a difference. “We can see it as one person and one garden and one toad, and that doesn’t feel like a big impact,” she says.

“But think about 1,000 of those gardens. That’s a significant impact on this amphibian population and a huge contribution to citizen science and local conservation.”

Notes

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WEST SPRINGFIELD Garden club lunch, meeting

have gotten lucky after a few mild winters. Your results may vary. For the most potent aroma, harvest herbs in the morning, after the dew has dried but before the sun gets intense. Use fragrant basil as an ingredient in tomato dishes. Add rosemary to poultry, pork and lamb recipes. Make tea with the tiny daisy-like flowers of chamomile. Add chives to salads and dishes calling for onions. Dill shines in Greek recipes, sour cream dips and with cucumbers. Sage elevates poultry, sausages and stuffings.

Thyme complements meat and fish dishes. And parsley will freshen your breath when you chew it. There are some interesting varieties to seek out, too. Pineapple sage carries the aroma of its namesake fruit, as do cinnamon and lemon basil, and strawberry and apple mint. There’s even a chocolate mint, which is lovely when added to milkshakes or cocktails. Got questions about spring gardening? Please send them to Jessica Damiano at jessica@jessicadamiano.com with “Gardening Question” in the subject line.

The annual luncheon and meeting of the Wilbraham Garden Club will be held at Storrowton Tavern on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition on June 1. Social hour will begin at 11:30 a.m. and the luncheon will follow at noon. Contact Norma Bandarra at 413-596-8173 for more information or reservations.

STOCKBRIDGE Vegetable garden

Berkshire Botanical Garden presents “Deep Dive: A Berkshire Vegetable Garden” on June 3. This is a off-site program. Among the topics to be covered on a tour of this West Stockbridge garden is soil management, including use of cover crops, various methods of in-garden composting, and adapting to no-till gardening. Participants will view different planting strategies for various crops using raised beds, mounding and vertical space. Various pest management strategies will be discussed. Also included is a walkthrough and discussion of the values of an unheated greenhouse for the yearround production of vegetables. Cost is $20 members, $25 nonmembers. For more information or to register, visit berkshirebotanical.org; Berkshire Botanical Garden is located at 5 West Stockbridge Road.

SPRINGFIELD Plant sale, scholarship fundraiser

The Springfield Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on June 3, from 9 a.m. to noon, at its new home at Forest Park, 300 Sumner Ave., behind the Cyr Arena. A spring tradition and the club’s major scholarship fundraiser, plants are from members’ gardens or have been grown from seed specifically for the sale.

The Springfield Garden Club awards and annual scholarship to a graduating high school senior, undergraduate or graduate college student majoring in a full-time plant science or environmental studies program, such as horticulture, floriculture, landscape design, conservation, forestry, botany, agronomy, plant pathology, environmental control, land management or other allied fields.

Send items for Garden Notes to pmastriano@repub. com two weeks prior to publication.

Aaron Posnik

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Aaron Posnik