Growing Herbs

[Scabutz]

I use fresh herbs a lot in cooking, but I find the supermarket stuff is often pretty tasteless. There are no independent quality places selling stuff near me either. I want to grow my own, I tired it once with the kids, we got one of those wooden wheels with sections in. Everything bar the rosemary was eaten by slugs in a week.

I dont have a greenhouse, nor want one really, but one of those plastic frames is ok.

Any got recommendations for

- Where to buy good quality seeds or plants from?
- Best place to grow them and in what? My garden faces west, but there is plenty of space along south facing side which gets sun from early morning till about 4 before its blocked by trees.
- How to stop the bd slugs from eating them all.

Would like to grow rosemary, thyme, flat leaf parsley, french tarragon, and maybe some others, but would rather larger yields of those than massive variety.

[21TonyK]

I've had reasonable success planting the supermarket herb pots. I've bought a few at a garden centre as well but not grown from seed.

Currently have oregano, thyme, french parsley, rosemary, bronze fennel and mint on the go.

Might be worth posting again (delete this one) in homes & garden

[andyA700]

We have grown all our basil, rosemary, thyme and mint this year. We had one basil plant decimated by miniature snails, even when we brought it inside. I bought some compost from a garden centre early this year, and it seems to have been full of snails eggs. The other two plants are fine becuse I used a mixture of old compost and earth.
It has been a bad year for snails and slugs because of the rain.

[vixen1700]

Scabutz said:

- How to stop the bd slugs from eating them all.

Either use copper-tape round the pots or smear Vaseline round the top of the pots.

[23.7]

If you're in a sluggy area very little you can do.

Try raising them onto tables, copper tape and nocturnal slug hunting with scissors. They'll still get through.

A pal lives on chalk downs, doesn't seem to have a problem.

Rosemary, chives, mint I'm okay with. Coriander, basil, parsley I struggle with.

[andyA700]

23.7 said:

If you're in a sluggy area very little you can do.

Try raising them onto tables, copper tape and nocturnal slug hunting with scissors. They'll still get through.

A pal lives on chalk downs, doesn't seem to have a problem.

Rosemary, chives, mint I'm okay with. Coriander, basil, parsley I struggle with.

We live in Kent in a very chalky area and this year the snail/slug problem has been overwhelming. I also find coriander very difficult to grow.

[Semmelweiss]

Metaldehyde slug pellets

Blue-Death to snails and slugs

[Ptolemy]

I bought Rosemary in a pot from a garden centre and it grew so big I planted it into the ground. That has done very well and the snails and slugs appear to leave it alone.

As for rocket, basil, sage, thyme, coriander etc I buy seeds in February from Nicky's Seeds and grow them on the window sill. If I put them outside then yes, the slugs get them.

Chillies, meanwhile, I start off indoors, but they tend to get bugs once they're in flower, I then put them outside and those bugs get eaten by more benign bugs.

[Biggus thingus]

Get one of those indoor propagators

Sit on a worktop and some have multiple pots in to grow different things

Think they work using just water and and plant food

[Scabutz]

Thanks all. I was thinking of building a drip irrigation system using aurdino. Wonder if I can add a camera, some AI image processing and a laser and fry the fking slugs before they get near. I'm only half joking. I've got a laser engraving module on m CNC machine.

I'm creating a garden kitchen with a BBQ/Smoker and a pizza oven (once I have doctors papers from the wife, which are proving evasive). Would like maybe a mini greenhouse as part of that with the herbs. Rosemary I can transfer to a pot when it's established as that seems hardy as fk.

[wiggy001]

I made a herb planter out of an old pallet and everything is doing pretty well. All herbs were garden centre bought plants except the coriander which was a plant from the supermarket. South facing in a sheltered (from wind) corner.

[Paul Drawmer]

Rosemary, Sage and Thyme will grow on well in poor dry soil and need few nutrients and when established do not need a lot of water.

Buy small plants from a garden centre next spring. Plant them in good compost in their final positions and let them get established before picking bits off them. Rosemary and sage will grow into fair sized plants quite quickly.

Parsley Mint, Rocket and chives all need better soil and plenty of water for the best flavour.

Mint needs to be grown in a bottomless bucket planted in the soil to stop it spreading.

Some years my curly leaf parsley and mint will over winter and pop up again in the spring. For parsley (flat and curly) just buy a supermarket pot, water it well and the next day split into three or four and plant out.

[nikaiyo2]

andyA700 said:

We live in Kent in a very chalky area and this year the snail/slug problem has been overwhelming. I also find coriander very difficult to grow.

Coriander is so easy to grow, this is how one of my Thai friends (where they use it on every dish just about ) grows it for their homestay.

https://youtu.be/_qpuQ87Oxtg

Oregano I spent AGES trying to grow it, must have bought 4 plants from the garden center and they all died.
Then I noticed some had sprung up in the shelter of the big bay tree, now it has spread all over, in the lawn, pots, even between the blocks on the drive.

[Nimby]

nikaiyo2 said:

Coriander is so easy to grow...

It grows fine outdoors without any protection, self-seeds and comes back year after year if you let it.