WORKSHOP
Just grow for it Growing herbs is one of the easiest and most rewarding types of gardening, especially for beginners. Get started with these five popular varieties Text by Holly Jean Brooker. Photography by Rebekah Robinson.
I
f you haven’t gardened before but are keen to give it a try, herbs are a great place to start. They are incredibly easy to grow and packed with antioxidants and nutrients – plus you’ll always have fresh leaves on hand to add to your salads and cooking. Herbs are pretty resilient; give them a decent patch of soil, some water and lots of sunshine and they’ll stick around for quite some time. Growing herbs from seed is easy and affordable, but if you’re new to this, it might be less intimidating to start with seedlings. Pop into your local garden centre to grab the selection you’re after, and buy a couple of seed packets too. Once you’ve got the soil ready by digging in organic matter such as compost or sheep pellets, plant the seedlings and sprinkle a few seeds around them to get the ball rolling.
132 | yhg
INSIDE OR OUT? Herbs grow well indoors so get creative with planters (filled with a quality potting mix) to create an indoor edible garden. If you’re short on space, jump on the microgreens trend by planting herb seeds in pots and harvesting the young shoots to add to salads. They’ll flourish on a sunny window sill. If you’d like to establish an outdoor kitchen garden, choose a sunny patch close to the kitchen for easy access when you’re cooking; I plant tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and mesclun with my herbs so I can grab all my salad essentials in one fell swoop. Keeping superthirsty herbs such as mint, coriander and basil together makes sense, too. For newbie gardeners, keeping it simple is a good way to go. Here, we’ve suggested five common herbs as ideal starter plants for your herb garden and, as confidence grows, you can begin experimenting with more varieties.
