Designing the best possible herb garden can be either a bit daunting or a lot of fun.You will have a lot of questions to consider:Where shall I locate the garden?What plants will thrive in my area?Which herbs do I use the most?Do I want a theme herb garden?Will it be a formal or informal garden design?How much time do I really have to care for it?Settle on a location. Rather than planting your herbs in the garden, look out your kitchen window and see if there is a suitable spot nearby to locate them. By finding a sunny spot near the kitchen door, you will have fast access to your culinary and tea herbs. Another option is to plant herbs in containers on a sunny patio.Which herbs will I plant?Decide on the type of herbs you use most, and plan your garden around them. Start by thinking of the kind of cooking you do – is it Italian, Mexican or French inspired? Which herbs do you now have in your spice rack, and which ones get used the most?Now, think about how much time you have to maintain and harvest your plants.This will help you decide the style and size of the garden. Generally, a lot of herbs can be grown in a small space, if the growing conditions are met.A 6 to 8 foot square or round space will be plenty large, and remember, you can always expand it later. A formal garden will take much longer to design and plant and maintain than an informal garden.Design a Formal Herb GardenThis style is generally geometric in shape, subdivided into symmetrical spaces. Low hedges of shrubs or box with paths of brick or gravel can separate the spaces. Each space will contain one type of plant, or perhaps one color of plant.You could have culinary herbs in one section, tea herbs in another, and so on. The overall shape could be circular, square, rectangular or diamond shaped. Many formal herb gardens have a central point of interest – a tree, a fountain, or a statue.If you decide on a formal garden, plan it out carefully on graph paper. Give your design enough room for both plants and paths. Look in garden books for inspiration, and find patterns that please you. These formal herb gardens, often called knot gardens can be beautiful additions to your yard.Informal Herb GardensIn this type of garden, herbs sprawl and creep naturally. They seem to have a pleasing mix of textures and foliage colors. However, pay some attention to planning as you plant.Learn how large each will grow, both height and spread. You don’t want to allow tall herbs to shade or over-grow smaller ones, or to have sprawling oregano overtake your smaller herbs.You can plant your informal herb garden as a themed garden – culinary, tea fragrance or medicinal herbs. Italian culinary herbs, health enhancing herbs or edible flowers could be your theme.If you live in a hot, dry location, perhaps a Mediterranean theme would work, with lavender, thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano planted.Another informal but attractive way to grow these plants is in a rockery. Roman chamomile, dwarf oregano and sage, winter savory, prostrate rosemary, pennyroyal and thymes are good rock garden herbs. Use local rocks to form the basis of your rockery, dug into the ground so they look natural, and intersperse them with your herbs, and perhaps add a few marigolds for color.Your herb garden, whether formal or informal, will be an investment of time, imagination and money that will repay you for years to come. Take the time to do your research before you plan it and most importantly, have fun with it.

1. Start with a good organic soil. The soil is the heart of any garden and a healthy, organic soil means a healthy organic garden. The key element in keeping soil healthy is to provide it with as many organic matters as possible. A good soil teeming with organic matters has the right consistency and allows water, air and the roots to penetrate. It can hold moisture but can also drain excess water. Once a good organic soil is achieved, everything else about an organic gardening seems easier to take care of.2. Compost and Mulch. These two are the best organic concoctions that you can make inexpensively and you can use to effectively improve the overall condition of your garden. Compost is not just a fertilizer but a soil conditioner as well because aside from adding nutrients to the soil, it also helps to retain moisture and achieve the crumb-like structure of the soil. Mulch is also a good soil conditioner and it efficiently reduces, if not prevents, weeds from taking over your garden. The best part is, these two can be made using materials that you normally throw away.3. Use Organic Fertilizers. The whole point of organic gardening is to use and utilize all-natural products and processes to have a lush and bountiful garden. Organic fertilizers are often slow-release type of fertilizers that mimic nature’s way of giving nutrients to the soil, that is through a slow but steady process of breaking down these fertilizers into forms that can be absorbed by the plants through their roots. This doesn’t result to instant growth but rather a more sturdy and healthy plant. Plants that grew quickly because of chemical fertilizers often have soft and succulent stems that are prone to pests and plant diseases.4. Make earthworms your best gardening buddy. Earthworm is a gardener’s best friend when it comes to keeping the soil healthy and in perfect form. Earthworms can improve the structure of the soil by crawling their way through them, making it easier for water and air to flow. They also leave their excrement on the soil, which are excellent source of organic matters.5. Choose the right plants for the right garden. There are many factors why you choose the plants that you want to have in your garden. But the most important of these factors should be to choose plants that you know will adapt well in your area. Experimenting on plants that require adverse growing conditions than the one you have in your garden could mean constantly struggling to keep the plants healthy and alive. But if you started out with the right plants, growing and sustaining them would be a lot easier.6. Pick better varieties. A lot of new and improved varieties are now readily available in garden centers and plant nurseries. If you can, pick plants that are disease-resistant and pest-repellent as this will save you from a lot of worries later on.7. Make animals and other insects your allies. Birds, lizards and frogs eat most of the creatures that many consider as pests in the garden. The same goes for some insects such as hover fliers, bees, spiders and praying mantises. Having them around is like having someone takes charge of the pest control.8. Prevention is always better than cure. Get ahead and protect your plants from pests and disease before they become actual problems. If you were able to prevent half of the pests and diseases that would have infected your garden, then you only have half of the problem to deal with.9. Fight weeds early. Weeds start from the seeds. Be careful that you don’t accidentally introduce weed seeds in your garden. A new soil, a new plant, a packet of plant seeds, your shoes, your clothes are just some of the things that can bring weed seeds in without you knowing it. Mulching early and frequently reduces the chance for these seeds to grow and become a gardener’s worst enemy.10. Get to know your garden. A good gardener knows his/her garden. And because everything is related to everything else in a garden, it’s beneficial to know what’s going on in your plants, in your soil and in your garden. When you see a pest or a disease that has inflicted your plants, don’t just think of ways to eliminate them right away. Observe and study what caused them, why they are there. If your plants suddenly seem stressed, look around and check for factors that could be affecting your plant’s health. Because only when you truly understand your plants, will you know what’s the best way to care for them.Have fun and don’t forget the reason why you’re going organic. You know what they say, love what you do and it’ll never feel like work at all.

As far back as in the days of the ancient Chinese and Egyptians, the fact that herbs have been in use then, has been well-documented in history. Herbs were even recorded as having been trade items on which tithes were offered during biblical times. So where does fresh herb gardening stand today?As noted in the recently published “Successful Herb Gardening ~ Step-by-Step” e-book, fresh herb gardening today can be very satisfying. It may start as a hobby but it is one hobby that will soon reward you, not only in terms of enjoyment, but will also give you the actual ingredients for your cooking and medical needs.Fresh herb gardening will provide you with the aromatic herbs that can transform your everyday cooking into an adventure. Just the adding of a teaspoon of tarragon can explode the flavours of your pot of casserole.Dry your herbs and mix them together into an aromatic potpourri and it will make your room smell good or brew them for tea. Pound them into a paste or marinate them in a tincture and they can relief your minor ailments to make your life more comfortable. You can even mix herbs into a solution for controlling garden insects and pests!Why not initiate a fresh herb garden project that is specialized towards any one exclusive use, a mixture of uses or even several of them if you so choose. Herb plants can also be advantageously grown as companion plants amongst other plants in your garden for their benefit and even in containers inside your house.There are several herb garden designs that you can adopt such as but not limited to, a small indoor herb garden on your kitchen windowsill, a small plot on your rooftop garden or even as part of a large Victorian kitchen garden.Although fresh herb garden plants generally prefer a sunlit location, some do flourish in fully shaded spots whilst many others can thrive in the afternoon shade.Extraordinarily, diseases and insect attacks which are the bane of the usual garden plants do not usually attack the herbal plants in a fresh herb garden patch. However, an infrequent infestation may occur with red spider mites and aphids found on the plants that grow close to the ground. The fennel, caraway, dill, or anise plants are amongst the herb plants that may be affected in this manner.You can start your fresh herb gardening project by growing your own seedlings from seeds or with young plants purchased from a garden centre.It is an immense joy to observe a plant as it grows from that one seed into a living and maturing thing that manifests some sign of growth every day. What a privilege and delight this experience is. And even more wonderful than this is to be able to watch this “birth to harvest” experience again and again because it is happening right in your own herb garden in your own backyard! As with most herbs, this is all the more satisfying because the rewards from your fresh herb gardening adventure are tangible aromatic plants that have so many useful benefits.If this article has kindled a desire in you to explore this subject further then it is time to get hold of the fresh herb gardening information you need before you take the plunge into an amazing journey of creating and reaping from your very own fresh herb garden.