7 Key Herbs for Container Gardens

Oregano in my recycling bin on our balcony.

One of the benefits of having your herb garden in containers is the ability to bring them inside when the weather turns cold.  Fresh herbs are a necessity in the kitchen.  Keeping them on hand will not only save time and the hassle of going to the grocery store, but money.  I don’t know about your store, but mine charges $1 per small bundle of fresh herbs.  The plants I bought at my local nursery were $1.99 and have lasted me 10 months now.  Another good reason to keep your herb garden containerized is because some have the tendency to overtake their area once they get started in a good spot in the garden.  For instance my thyme that I allocated about a 12″ x 12″ area for in the garden is easily 18″ x 18″ now and my mint is sprawling out all over.

7 Herbs I can’t live without

Here are just a few herbs that I started growing in March and now can’t imagine living without.

1. Thyme
2. Oregano
3. Marjoram
4. Basil
5. Mint
6. Bay Laurel
7. Garlic Chives

I usually use thyme, oregano or marjoram in the same general cooking practices.  Be it creating a marinade for my grilling, or cooking with my black eyed peas for flavor.  When creating a meal  I usually theme everything I’m cooking around an herb or combination of herbs.  Even though thyme, oregano and marjoram all have different flavors, to me they fall into the same general category and I use them interchangeably as well as together to create variations when cooking the same grilled veggies.

Basil is always fun to use.  Its an awesome addition to the frozen cheese pizzas we buy.  I usually try to keep about 3 or 4 different types around so I can make different flavored pestos for pastas and sandwich spreads.

When cooking soups, beans and peas Bay Laurel is a necessity.  I just wish I had bought a bigger plant to start because it grows so slowly.

Garlic Chives are fun to have around for garnishing baked potatoes and soups with.

Since I had such good luck and fun with these 7 herbs last year I am looking forward to expanding my herb repretoir in this gardening season.  This weekend I plan to order seeds and start some of my own transplants for my garden, some clients and friends.  I am looking at The Herb Bible by Peter McHoy & Pamela Westland, Heirloom Herbs by Mary Forsell, and trying to remember what some of the chefs’ gardens I saw last season were growing.

Today at Olivia

Olivia Vegetable Garden 11.17.09

This morning Tara and I went to Olivia to check on the vegetable garden, plant our weekly seeds, and water.  It’s always fun to check on a garden after not seeing it for a week; sometimes I want to go by and peek before Tuesday comes around again.  Since the garden is at a restaurant, sneaking a peek is easy, but I generally force myself to wait, which makes the impact of a week’s worth of growth more satisfying.  I do believe that the English peas have grown about a foot since last week.  We also have a few broccoli florets peaking out and two zucchinis forming.

Maintaining a vegetable garden for a restaurant is intriguing.  Some of the items I noticed missing or cut off, I never would have thought of using.  Olivia’s team seems to love the leaves from the broccoli plants.  One week I showed up and they were all almost naked.  Morgan, the chef de cuisine is also obsessed with broccoli raab.  And they take the tips of the English pea vines for garnishing on the plate.  Not to mention showing up every other week to a few rows worth of beheaded lettuces.  Its definately fun, and I never know what to expect.

a baby frog in the garden

Our baby frog on a broccoli leaf.

On Tuesday Tara and I went to Olivia restaurant’s garden to plant seeds like usual.  This Tuesday we planted seeds for:  Easter Egg Radish, Daikon Radish, Chioggia Beets, Bull’s Blood Beets, Spinach & Broccoli Raab.

As we were inspecting the broccoli and other Cole crops for caterpillars and aphids I saw a little baby frog.  He was so small and cute that we almost lost him in the mulch, but we managed to coax him out onto a leaf for a photo op.

Just wanted to share the joy of cuteness.

Nancy

The garden's greenhouse was was where the peppers and eggplants were.

A couple of months ago in the excitement of Spring I went to the Sunshine Community Gardens annual sale.  It was like I would imagine Wal-Mart at 5am the Friday after Thanksgiving, with a slightly different crowd of course.  There was a line around the block to get in.  Each popular vegetable had its own tent, and the tomato tent was the worst.  I had an idea of what I might want, but there were varieties of tomatoes everywhere and hundreds of people picking through them.  Plants were broken and toppled over, and Tara was afraid to enter.  I’m amazed that I made it out with 10 good plants and no bruises.  Then we went over to the peppers and eggplant tent, which was much more organized with a line to get in and a steady flow of civilized people looking for what they wanted.  By then I had also obtained a list of the plants offered with descriptions.  That helped a lot because by the time we got into the tent I knew what I wanted.

After my frenzied heart had settled down, we went exploring.  Nancy was sitting at a table in the trailer just hanging out and we started to talk.  At the time I was only reading Square Foot Gardening and was full of exciting new ideas about how my garden could produce so much.  My whole plan was based only on those techniques.  Nancy, being the pleasantly opinionated woman that she is, put me in my place.  She has been gardening at the community gardens for 10 years.  Now, I’m not sure if she has actually tried Square Foot Gardening, but she believes that for Texas at least, it might not be so practical.  Nancy tried to talk me out of the idea altogether and almost had me convinced, but being the stubborn person that I am I decided to at least try it for myself.  So far so good, although I do have a bit of a pest problem I need to handle at the moment.  Of course Nancy predicted it, but to my defense everyone has problems with aphids and ants especially in Texas.

Since then I’ve been gardening with Nancy once a week at the gardens.  They have a fairly large vegetable garden that people pitch into and all the produce goes to the Micah 6 Pantry.  A couple of weeks ago we planted cucumbers and zucchini in there.  Nancy also has a vegetable plot that she’s growing a number of things in.  I’m quite impressed with the size of her onions, and her potatoes are growing like weeds.  I can’t wait to dig them up.   A few plots over Nancy has a flower garden.  It will take me some time before I get down all the plant varieties. I have so much to learn about native plants and flowers. Among the seasonal poppies and larkspurs, that we’ve been slowly clearing from the gardens, are several different types of Salvia.  The Salvia Purpurea in particular she says is not available in stores because it is so hard to propagate.  I want to see if I can do it, but I’m sure that I will need several chippings to try it out.

For now, though, I just show up at the gardens and Nancy tells me what we are doing for the day.  I almost always come home with beautifully cut flowers, new tips on how to harvest vegetables and recipes to try.  Did you know that if you put the base of your lettuce in cold water immediately it will keep for days without wilting?

Peppers in the Micah 6 garden.

Nancy’s flower garden.

That’s the Salvia Microphylla with the red flowers and the Larkspur are the blue and violet flowers in back.

Nancy in her garden.

The garden’s greenhouse was was where the peppers and eggplants were.

My Seedlings

In my readings lately I’ve come across a few different pointers on planting seeds.  Square Foot Gardening recommends planting your seeds in vermiculite while Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening recommends worm castings.  So in my square foot garden I planted all my seeds in vermiculite, and in my test garden in castings.  In the square foot approach Mel Bartholomew explains that he uses vermiculite to keep moisture around the seed and make a light substance for the seedlings to push through.  Turns out both worked well.

Week old Pole Beans

The process was a fun-filled day.  Amber came over, we bought a few beers and spent the day mixing compost, fertilizing soil and planting seeds.

Earlier in the day I had gone to The Natural Gardener to stock up on compost.  While talking to the busy bees that work there I learned that my clay-filled soil, which already had a good amount of their hill country soil mix added to it, would need a revitalizer compost.  So I bought several bags and went about filling them up and lugging them to the car.  That was of course after I spent about an hour browsing and thinking about what else I might need.  But if you know me well, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I ended up buying fertilizers, bags of potting soil, and minerals.  The one plant I managed to make it out of there with was a plant that I’ve been casually looking for going on a year now, a Mexican oregano that I hear does very well in this part of Texas.

So when I got home Amber came over to be my company for the day.  We started off by mixing in the compost.  Then I sprinkled in a Lady Bug all purpose fertilizer that I saw my new Master Gardener friend, Nancy, using a few days before.  Wow the dirt looked so good.  I was excited, and Amber couldn’t wait to start putting things into the ground.

A few days before Nancy had given me free rein in the Sunshine Community Garden’s green house.  I got to take anything I wanted home.  I had to take about three trips to the car.  I took several types of chard, peppers,  a couple more tomatoes, and several things I thought friends would like.

So armed with veggies and many seed packets we got started.  In the square foot garden we did a square of 2 cucumbers, 7 pole beans, 4 chard, 9 bush beans, and 2 squares of 4 nasturtiums each.  Everything except the chard was from seed.  In the test garden with revitalized soil we planted 3 types of peppers, 2 chards, 2 Asian greens that sort of look like chard, and 2 zucchini from seed.  Over the seeds I decided to create mini greenhouses from some chicken wire I found by the side of the house and some thick plastic.  I wanted to protect them from animals and torrential rains.  I was so glad I did because it did rain hard a few days later.

Our seedlings are in there itchin to get out!

Now its about a week and a half later and our seedlings are up and growing.  I had to make Amber come over to check them out because I was so excited.  As if people haven’t been doing this for thousands of years.

The Spacemaster Cucumber

Nasturtiums

The Square Foot Garden. I just have one more square to fill and I have to clue what to fill it with...

Bush Beans