Planting ideas for a mini herb garden

Planting a herb garden can be very rewarding they look and smell great, they can support local bees providing a much needed food sauce and most importantly they provide tasty fresh herbs for cooking.

We chose to plant thyme, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, lemon balm and parsley, all the plants that have been selected are small in size so perfect to start of in the clip on planters of a water butt. Once the plants are established they will be moved on to a more permanent home in one of our raised beds, but for now they are placed in a handy spot which is close to the kitchen for grabbing a handful whilst cooking.

Planting in a good multi purpose compost works best, we also topped each planter with white alpine gravel which helps keep moisture in the planters on sunny days.

A great advantage of planting herbs in self watering planters is that there will be a steady supply of moisture to the plants roots which will eliminate any stress the plant would come under should the soil dry out too much.

We love to include Lemon Balm when planting herbs because of its delicate lemony smell on touch. It is perfect to be used in soups and sauces, salads and vinaigrettes as well as smoothies, cookie dough, herbal butters, meat marinades homemade breads, and jams, not to mention the holistic properties in teas, candles, face scrubs, lip balms bug balms and many more.