plant herbs in Dublin

pjuegos

Hi all,

I would like to get some advice in planting herbs for cooking
I am a complete beginner in Gardening and I wonder how easy/difficult this would be. I have a nice size garden in Dublin area, which also has a covered pergola.
The herbs I had in mind were: basil, parsley, thyme, dill, rosemary ,spear mynt and saffron.

Is it possible to grow in Dublin all the above mentioned herbs?
How should I do proceed? Should I plant them in individual plant pots? Do they need lots of sun? Or a shady area is good enough?

Thanks for your help

aerosol

Have a google for herb spirals.... Its a great way to grow herbs as you can use the struture to get the best growing conditions for each type grown.

Never tried saffron so I'm not sure,mint is very invasive so best grown in a pot I think,all the others you mentioned should grow well,don't forget chives and oregano and ,and ,and......:D

looksee

I have never tried to grow Saffron either, you would have to investigate that on line I think. Rosemary grows into a goodsized bush and is easy. Trim it back each year to get young shoots. It has pretty purple flowers and smells lovely.
All the others are easy and the plants can be bought either in a garden centre or in mild weather you can plant out those herb plants you get in the supermarket. The first lot of growth will probably die off, but if you cut it back it will come again.
I would be inclined to grow them in large pots if possible, or in a raised bed. A raised bed is just a surround of timber or bricks with the soil piled higher than the surrounding garden. As has already been suggested, do not put mint into your garden, it will take over. Punch some holes in the bottom of a sturdy bucket, or use a large clay pot and bury it part way into the ground. Though the extremely persistent roots, which are worse than scutchgrass, are quite likely to grow out of the holes in the bottom.
Thyme is easy and perrenial (it keeps growing year after year) and has pretty flowers, there is also a lemon scented one, you don't have to stick to the plain green one. Sage is easy and will go on for ever. Basil is tender and has to be grown every year. Likewise parsley, though I did have a parsley plant that lasted a few years, but usually it dies off in the winter. Chives will just keep coming every year. You can eat nastertion leaves and flowers too, they look amazing in a salad.
Try growing mixed salad leaves in a large pot, just a pinch of seed every 2 or 3 weeks in the summer will give you leaves all summer. Don't put too many seeds in or you will get silage .

The Sweeper

Try these links from this forum for some more information... there are quite a few herb growers out there!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055234623

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055513628

pjuegos

Thanks to all of you for the comprehensive information.

-large pots vs raised bed: is there any advantage in the use of a raised bed?

-pots: looksee suggested the use of large pots, and a clay one for mint. Should all the pots be made by clay? Or plastic plots are fine as well?
Something that surprises me is that I have some plastic pots at home which have no drainage holes at all. Why is this the case? Should not all pots have drainage?

-Planting temperature: in this freezing season, can I have the plant outdoors?

Thanks

looksee

Plastic pots are fine. The only reason I suggested clay for the mint was to try and control it, it can put roots through a light plastic pot. Raised beds would be fine too, its just a matter of keeping the herbs accessible and not just losing them in the garden.
The plastic pots with no holes - if they are the very big ones for the garden you are supposed to make holes in the places indicated. If they are small ones they are for putting plant pots into, they are usually decorative and are called cache pots.
Its a bit too cold at the moment for planting anything out, the ground is frozen. When it has thawed and the temperature has risen just a bit you will be ok for the hardy perennials like thyme, sage, rosemary.

pjuegos

Great feedback again


Thanks a lot for your help looksee

pjuegos

Hi again,

I have planted the following plants from seeds in small plastic containers (see pics):

• spear mint
• sage
• parsley
• basil
• madjoran
• thymes
• dill

I also bought a rosemary plant, which was planted directly into the garden soil


They all look like wel to my. However, this was my first time planting anything from seeds and I probably used too many seeds per pot? So, now I have many plants growing into each individual pot.
Well, know I am a little bit confused about what to do. I asked around and I get different answers.

• Should I repot the herb plants? One plant per pot?
• Should I use very small pots as adviced to me? Or that is just for growing them from seeds in the first place?
• Will the plants annoy each other when the start to grow seriously
• Should I transplant the perennials to the garden soil (except the invasive mint)?
• When can I start to use the leaves for cooking?

Thanks

HardyEustace

Main thing to remember with herbs is that they don't like their feet wet (i.e. good drainage) and love the heat.