I keep trying to create areas that are low maintenance but productive.
We have two brick planters on the patio. The one has thyme covering it and it grows beautifully all year, flowers around now and providing us with more herbs than we could ever use. It takes no effort to look after it!
The other planter was going to be for more annual herbs, but last year it grew weeds and looked a mess.
This year we've hit it hard. My wife dug out all the weeds, I topped it up with rotted cow muck and then put a layer of compost over the top.
The children then helped plant some plants. Two types of sage, one new variety of rosemary and 7 lavender plants. Hoping these will establish and provide us with some much needed easy care patio planters, look beautiful and provide herbs for the kitchen.
While they establish we also planted about 30 beetroot plants I'd started from seed in the greenhouse. Makes sense to use the growing space we have and should maybe ease the weed pressure if other plants are already growing.
The children were excited by the herbs as it meant more for their potion making!
What's your dream set of herbs for a planter?
Just getting them to survive in the windblown salt on our balcony is a dream it seems. All dragged back indoors again today - the kitchen floor has become the herb garden again. The basil plants suffer most. O regano can stay out there -this is its element. Same too for the Dittany. We have had to give up on lavendar which seems strange - maybe the problem was the available potting mix. Yours is going to look great.
ReplyDeleteAh a very different set of conditions to ours! Basil struggles here for the opposite reasons! Always gets too wet, although I might do a big patch in the polytunnel this year as I do love it.
DeleteThat's fab Kevin, I love that you get the kids to do it all as well, what fun they're having!
ReplyDeleteGot to use the labour we've got to hand. The boy was asking about doing some gardening so it seemed a perfect time.
Deletei love this planter kev! if you plant something maintenance free like marigolds around the perimeter it will give it some pretty color too!
ReplyDeleteThere's a nastruim in there as well. I'll plant up my big planters around it with some tender herbs in the next few weeks as well I think.
DeleteKev, based on what we actually use, it would be rosemary, thyme, basil. I grow mint less because we use a lot of it as much I like the appearance and scent of it. And lavender is a good one. It is does not do so well here but at our previous home, we had many different kinds.
ReplyDeleteWe have mint everywhere, I decided to plant it where the nettles are and see which one wins. I do love basil as well and have some growing almost ready to pot out.
DeleteI have three different criteria for herbs - the ones I use most for food (mints, parsley, lovage, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, purple sage), the ones I grow medicinally, (chamomile, calendula, echinacea, vervain, elecampane, ashwagandha, hyssop, lavender, sweet woodruff, solomon seal, agrimony, St John's wort, angelica, lemon balm,) and the ones I forage for medicinal use (dandelion, burdock, nettle, hawthorn, elderflower/berry, horse chestnut, cramp bark, bugle, plantain, yarrow, meadowsweet, ground ivy). Then, of course there are the weeds which end up in green powder along with other herbs for winter use such as ground elder. Herbs generally don't like rich soil, so you might find they either go to seed quickly or just refuse to play.
ReplyDeleteI was in two minds about adding cow manure as know herbs don't like it. But we've been growing from this bed for the last 4 years and I thought it could do with something adding back in. Hopefully it will mean they have something to sink their roots into and hold some moisture as the compost can dry a bit quick.
DeleteYour selection of herbs sounds amazing. I have quite a few others growing around the place, feverfew, fennel, sweet cicily, lemon balm, comfrey, loveage, about 12 types of mint, marjoram, papalo, Peruvian black mint, mexican taragon, which we use for different things although I should be using them more really, but it's good to have them growing here.