How to start an herb garden at home

If you’re anything like a good chunk of the population, you’ve likely considered quitting your job, buying a small farm, and living out your days gardening, taking care of animals, and tending your land. Unfortunately, while this dream isn’t doable for most of us, we can bring this dream to life in small ways: one of those ways is starting an herb garden in your back yard—or even your apartment.

Herbs can sometimes be pushed to the wayside when we’re thinking about gardening. But you can’t blame anyone for that: think of how bright and dazzling summer flowers are, how crisp and nourishing the vegetables. 

But to push herbs aside is to do a great disservice to yourself and the herbs! Herbs are powerhouses of nutritional value, provide flavor and texture in the kitchen, and even have medicinal properties. It’s no wonder so many people look to start an herb garden in their home.

Ready to start an herb garden? Read on to learn how.

Don’t have time right now to read this post? Click the image below to save it to Pinterest for later!

Know your zone

Before you start an herb garden, you should figure out which plant hardiness zone you’re in. This is especially true if you’re gardening outdoors, but even if you’re starting with an indoor garden, it’s good to know what climate you’re in—and which plants will thrive. 

Finding out your plant hardiness zone is important for a number of reasons. The zone you live in will determine which plants will grow best, when you can plant and harvest them, and (roughly) the temperatures and precipitation amounts expected during the growing season. 

If you live in B.C. like me, you can use this fun, interactive map to figure out your zone. If you’re anywhere else in Canada, this chart will do the trick.

Create space

Once you know your zone, you’ll need to make space for your new herb garden. This can be done indoors or outdoors, as long as the space has enough light, the pots have good drainage, and the herbs will have enough space to spread and grow. 

On the topic of light: most herbs are considered full sun, which means they require 6+ hours of direct sunlight a day. If you’re growing herbs indoors, make sure you plant them near a south facing window where they’ll get enough light. If you don’t have access to this, herbs can be grown near two 40-watt bulbs.

Choose what to grow

Now that you have your space picked out for your herb garden, you’ll need to decide what to grow. This is where knowing your plant hardiness zone comes in. For example, if you live in B.C. like I do, you’ll know from looking at B.C.’s zone that tropical herbs such as vanilla, cardamom, lemongrass may be tough to grow and keep alive in our colder winters.

If you’re just starting out, easy to grow herbs will be your best option. Parsley, cilantro, mint, thyme, oregano, chamomile, and basil are all quite easy to grow, and have a wide range of uses in the kitchen, as well as being used in some medicinal creations.

If you’re strictly growing indoors, this list of sixteen herbs that grow indoors year-round may be useful.

Research your plants

Once you choose what to grow, you’ll need to research your chosen herbs—yes, every one of them! In order to give your herbs the best chance of thriving, you’ll need to know which conditions they do best in. This means determining their soil, light, moisture, and fertilizer requirements.

If you’re planting indoors, soil and drainage will be especially important to consider. Take for example parsley, which requires well-drained soil rich in organic matter. Knowing this, you wouldn’t then put it in a pot with clay-rich soil and no drainage holes—that’s how you lose your plants.

Having said this, when you start an herb garden, an easy rule of thumb is to plant your herbs in big pots, give them lots of light, and water until moist—don’t allow them to sit in standing water.

Source your seeds

Now that we’ve done all the preliminary work, it’s time to buy our seeds. I know there are gardeners out there that swear by—or veto—certain brands, but I’ve never found one brand to be better than another.

So, you can go about it one of two ways: you can search for seeds in an online catalogue—shopping from the comfort of your own home—or you can head down to your local garden center and choose your seeds.

Personally, I always choose to shop for seeds in person: you can chat with the workers and find out things you wouldn’t have if you’d just been shopping online. Shopping in person also means you see all the seeds laid out before you, and can pick up a couple different brands to compare.

A note on seeds vs. seedlings

New gardeners always want to know what’s better: growing your herbs from seed, or buying seedlings that are already established.

The answer is: it depends on what your goals are! If you’re starting an herb garden to work on your green thumb and nurture something, to watch is develop from start to finish, then buying seeds is the way to go. But if you’re mainly starting an herb garden to use the herbs, and don’t care too much about the growing process, then buying seedlings may be for you.

Parting thoughts

Growing your own herbs is not only doable, but a fun and easy way to add a bit of life to a backyard or windowsill. When we start an herb garden, we not only breath life into old spaces, but provide ourselves with flavorful, healthy additions to any dish, or even just eat on their own. Herbs are small but powerful, providing us with medicine, food, and a little bit of joy.

xoxo,

Catherine

Like this post and want to come back to it later? Click the image below to save it to Pinterest!

---

Some more posts you may like:

All you need to know about the phases of the moon: a beginner’s guide to lunar cycles

Blooming, breathing: How no longer setting goals for myself has made life better

How to Build New Habits in an Intentional Way—and Stick to Them

---

Like this post and want to see more? Type your email into the space above to receive updates when new blog posts are added, head over to the blog’s main page, or click the “next” or “previous” buttons below.

---

Home | Writing | Blog | Write For Us | Contact