Growing Nicely

gardening, sustainability, growing food, plants and flowers.

  • Home
  • About
  • Garden Writing
  • Garden Services
    • A Garden Consultation to Reveal the Beauty of your Garden.
  • The Blog
    • Sustainable Gardening
    • Growing Food
    • Gardening & Plants
    • Garden Design
    • Garden Visits
  • Contact Me

How To Grow Herbs – part 2

April 9, 2020 By Jill Anderson 4 Comments

Following on from how to grow hardier types of herbs, Part 2 of How To Grow Herbs is all about growing annuals. Quick and easy to grow, they’re the gems of the herb world.

Sown from seed each year, they provide flavour & variety. Most are small & ideal for growing in containers or on a window-sill. There are two categories of annuals, hardy & half-hardy.

How To Grow Herbs - part 2 - yellow dill flowers in the foreground, white cosmos flowers in the background.

Dill, looking wonderful in the flower border.

HARDY ANNUALS:

These are all pretty tough, & not sensitive to frost, so don’t need much cosseting once they’ve germinated.

PARSLEY:

Flat leaved parsley is the best one for flavour. I’d hate to be without it because it can be used in so many dishes.

Where:

Happiest in a good, moist soil, with a little shade. It’s a good herb for containers if space is tight, or you want a handy pot of it by the back door.

How:

It’s takes 2 or 3 weeks to germinate, speed this up by watering the Drill with warm water just before sowing.

Strictly speaking it’s a biennial, i.e. grows in the first year & flowers in the second. My parsley is still good from last summer, it hasn’t flowered so far, grown in a container, its in a sheltered place by the kitchen door. I’m starting a fresh crop any day.

Sow in spring & again in about 6-7 weeks later for a plentiful supply.

CORIANDER:

A must for south Asian & Indian recipes as a garnish.

Where:

A sunny place in well drained soil is the best place.

How:

Start sowing in March inside or April directly into the soil. Sow again every 4 weeks for a good supply through summer, because it bolts (sets seed & stops growing) very easily.

DILL:

A very pretty plant with feathery leaves & acid green flowers. The flowers should be picked before they form, maybe leave 1 or 2 plants for flowering. You may not use it a lot, but it has such a different flavour to other herbs, that it’s worth having. Fabulous with fish, especially salmon.

How To Grow Herbs - part 2 - yellow dill flowers.

Acid yellow Dill flowers look amazing, though best cut the flower buds off the plants you want for leaves, & keep a few for the flower border.

Where:

Plenty of light, but not full sun, in well-drained soil.

How:

Sow directly into the soil in mid-spring, thin the seedlings to 25cm/10in. Make a couple more sowings, it’s a ‘bolter’, at 4 week intervals.

 

HALF-HARDY ANNUALS:

Please don’t be put off growing these absolute treasures by the half-hardy bit. They just need different care & conditions to their hardier cousins.

They need warmth & wont survive outside in frost or chilly winds.

BASIL:

A wonderful summer flavour for any Italian dish, especially good with tomatoes.

Where:

Plants can be grown outside when there are no more frosty nights, that’s end of May here in Surrey.

Somewhere warm & sunny, but not baking sunshine all day, the leaves are delicate. Give plants a little water every day in summer.

How:

Sow the seeds under cover in late April/early May. Grow the purple variety as well, it doesn’t have as much flavour as the green ones, but a mixture of the two on a plate is a winning combination.

Start them off inside on a sunny widow-sill, pot them into small individual pots when they have at least 3 sets of leaves. Continue potting into the next size up as they grow. They don’t like sudden changes in temperature, so I keep mine inside. They’ll be fine outside if you have a sunny, sheltered place in your garden.

See part 1 of How To Grow Herbs, including rosemary, chives & mint, here.

Sustainable gardening is close to my heart, so I wanted to let you know about Peat Free April. It’s a plea to all gardeners to use composts that are completely peat-free.

Peat bogs provide a home for many rare, small creatures & plants. Peat bogs also store lots of carbon, which keeps it out of the atmosphere, where it would contribute to global warming.

Amateur gardeners use 69% of all the peat sold in the U.K., so we really can make a difference.

Peat free compost is available here in the U.K. online from Dalefoot Compost & Melcourt. 

Deliveries may not be as speedy as usual, but they are still sending compost out at the time of writing.

Find Part 1 of How To Grow Herbs here.

*Facts & figures from Plantlife, a Charity dedicated to saving our wild plants.

Next week’s blog is about How To Grow Edible Flowers. Just what you need to make your food look lovely & many of them add flavour too.

Look after yourselves & have a happy weekend.

Jill

All photos: Jill Anderson

 

Related posts:

Fancy growing a fruit to use in pies, crumbles and cocktails? what to do at the allotment June-potatoesWhat to do at the allotment in June Using wood-ash in the garden My Garden & The War Against Slugs

Related posts:

Fancy growing a fruit to use in pies, crumbles and cocktails? what to do at the allotment June-potatoesWhat to do at the allotment in June Using wood-ash in the garden My Garden & The War Against Slugs
Filed Under: Blog, Growing Food, Plants, Recycling & Sustainability Tagged With: how to grow annual herbs, how to grow parsley, peat free April, peat free compost

Never Miss A Post

Subscribe for updates to be delivered straight to your inbox.

Comments

  1. Julie Quinn says

    April 13, 2020 at 7:23 pm

    Very useful two posts, thanks a lot and I’m going to really wort out my herbs this year.

    Reply
    • Jill Anderson says

      April 15, 2020 at 10:40 am

      Hi Julie, good to hear the posts were useful & that you’re really going for herbs this year. Isn’t it lovely to loose yourself in gardening in these difficult times.

      Reply
  2. landscaping Christchurch says

    September 19, 2020 at 6:11 am

    Thank you very much for sharing about how to grow herbs part-2 here… I really hope I can work on your tips and it works for me too, I am happy to come across your article. Great post I must admit, keep sharing more…

    Reply
    • Jill Anderson says

      September 21, 2020 at 11:14 am

      I’m glad the post was helpful for you Ken and I’m sure they’ll work for you.
      It’s interesting to think of you at the opposite end of the seasons in New Zealand!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

plants-gardens-growing-eating

Jill-profile image

Hello, I’m Jill Anderson.
This is where you’ll find good, solid information about gardening, growing fruit & vegetables and how to keep it all looking good.
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
The healing, calming power of nature in one photo. The healing, calming power of nature in one photo.
These wonderful autumn colours won’t be around for much longer. But that’s ok, because now is what matters, & their fleeting beauty makes them even more precious.
It’s easy to see how being among trees & nature is so beneficial for our health & wellbeing. 
Have a great Sunday.
Savouring all the autumn colour, & doesn’t it lo Savouring all the autumn colour, & doesn’t it look spectacular with this bold front door.
Today has been hard work, after a lovely time last week in Norfolk. The north coast there is spectacular. Realising these last few months, that there are so many beautiful places here. 
Have a nice evening.
Charming glasshouse at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Vis Charming glasshouse at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Visiting to see the Anish Kapoor sculptures, which are amazing, but unprepared for the beauty of the grounds & garden. 
Such a treat, worth coming to Norfolk for this alone!
Hope you’re keeping well, & managing to smile some of the time. x
P.S. more of Houghton Hall & Anish Kapoor on my stories
We stopped off on the way home to pick blackberrie We stopped off on the way home to pick blackberries, after coffee & cake, sitting in the churchyard - the cafe was full, & the churchyard is a quiet, peaceful spot..... as you’d expect.
-
One little advantage of lockdown is walking so much more, rather than using the car. Though it shouldn’t have taken something as momentous as this, for me to change bad habits 🙁
Hope you’re weekend is going well.
My hazel arch, a bit lopsided 🙄 using wood from My hazel arch, a bit lopsided 🙄 using wood from a random clump of hazel on the garden. Now looking much better covered in winter squash plants, so you can’t see just how ramshackle it is. I like to think it has a certain home-spun charm .

Great for small space gardening, imagine how much room you need to grow these without vertical supports.

I’ve got 2 Uchiki kuri, lovely nutty flavour.
1 Turks turban, for its flamboyant shape & colours, though it also tastes good.
One unknown, grown by my grandsons in their homeschooled science lesson.
Close-ups of the squash over on my stories.
Stay cool my friends x
I wanted to show you this lovely lily ( Lilium reg I wanted to show you this lovely lily ( Lilium regale) which is flowering right outside our bedroom window. 
It gets sun for about 4 hours only, you can order the bulbs now for planting in September. It’ll reappear every year & waft delicious scent around your garden, or through your windows.
Have a very happy Monday x
It’s British Flower Week, there’s a lot to be It’s British Flower Week, there’s a lot to be said for fabulous seasonal flowers that haven’t travelled thousands of miles ...... & are wonderful for biodiversity
A bit of rain, nice long days (it’s almost mid-s A bit of rain, nice long days (it’s almost mid-summer!) & it’s, mostly, all growing nicely.

Spinach, courgettes & garlic in shot here. 
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday x
Hope is a decision I’ve thought long & hard abou Hope is a decision
I’ve thought long & hard about how to view the tumult in the world we’re living in now. 
The only thing that works for me, is to choose hope.

It’s a tall order, but avoiding mainstream news & speculation helps avoid the anxiety, that’s often waiting in the wings.

One day soon there’ll be grandchildren clambering over this again.
Follow on Instagram

Don't miss any posts!

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts.

Archive

Copyright © 2021 Growing Nicely | Privacy Policy

Please note this website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent for cookies to be used. For further information on use of cookies please refer to our privacy policy Find out more.