Monday, 27 June 2011

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Food and Medicine Garden

Food and Medicine Garden
Herbs are the plants that have medicinal as well as culinary use. They can be used in food to add flavor as spices. Most herbs are the wild plants and hence don’t require much care. They can grow without much care. Herb gardening is an easy task. You can make your herb gardening a more beautiful experience if you follow few herb gardening tips. Herb gardens can be planted in the smallest available place in your flower garden or they can even be planted in pots in your kitchen so that you can use them whenever required.
Herb Gardens:
The main reason of planting the medicinal herbs in your garden is that these species are mostly endangered. You can also use these herbs whenever required. Most culinary lovers will need the fresh herbs for cooking. Planting them at the hand distance, will be much helpful to get the herbs when required.
Medicinal Herbs:
• Bilberry
• Angelica
• Bistort
• Astragals
• Blue Flag
• Blackthorn
• Borage
• Chamomile
• Calendula
• Comfrey
• Coltsfoot
• Couch grass
• Cow slip
• Dandelion
• Fennel
• Feverfew
• Elder
• Geranium
• Hawthorn
Culinary Herbs:
• Coriander
Thyme
• French Lavender
• Basil
• Bay Laurel
• Parsley
• Lemon Verbena
• Dill
• Chives
• Rosemary
• Sage
Above are some of the kitchen herbs that can be planted in your garden. Below are some tips to follow when you are planting these in your food and medicine gardens.
Herb Gardening Tips:
Herbs grow wild and they generally grow in full sunlight. Hence, whenever you grow herb garden, make sure that the place you chose for gardening receives ample sunlight. Most people prefer to grow the culinary herbs in their kitchen in containers. When you are growing them in pots or containers, you can place the pot in sunlight during day hours. Herbs also do not require frequent watering.
Harvesting of herbs is extremely important after their complete growth. If you do not harvest them on time, they will consume lots of plant energy and thus it will resist the plant growth.
You can plant the herbs in your flower garden or the vegetable garden. You can chop off the healthy portion of herbs when required. Some herbs are suitable for landscaping while some have culinary and medicinal use. It would be more stressful to cut down the fully grown rosemary in your garden or the thyme that forms a uniform border for your garden. But remember that these herbs can grow again and again.
Landscape herbs will add glory to your home while culinary herbs will add value to your meals. You can prune the herbs to encourage the fresh leafy growth of the healthy plant.

Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Harvest Herbs Tips


Herbs are the plants grown in the gardens for the purpose of flavor, scent, or medicine. There are many herb plants that can be added in cooking to get the special taste for your recipe. The herb gardens can be planted in the minimum space in your flower garden. If you don’t have flower garden in your backyards, you can also plant these herb gardens in the containers and keep these containers in your balcony or kitchen. Such gardens are called kitchen herb gardens. When you are planting such gardens, it is important to know the proper herb gardening tips so that you can easily grow and maintain these gardens.

Herbs are the wild plants that generally do not require much attention for growing. When you have planted the herbs in your garden, you must wait till the herbs are ready for harvesting. When they grow completely, they should be harvested on time. The article discusses some tips for harvesting the herbs. For long term preservation, it is important to follow the proper harvesting tips and store the herbs after harvesting in right way.

Harvesting the Herbs

It is important to choose the proper harvesting time for harvesting the herbs. Harvest them after complete growth. The inappropriate time and weather may cause disintegration of oil in herbs. It is best to harvest the herbs in the morning. The soil is moist during the early morning hours that will prevent the herbs from producing rich amount of oil and the oil will remain stored in the herb. It is usually done after the dew has evaporated from leaves of herb before blossoming.
It is not possible to harvest the herb completely. It is suggested to keep one third part for regeneration of plant. Whenever you harvest the herbs, it is important to check the insects on the herbs and remove the affected leaves from the plant for future use.

Freezing is the best process for storing the herbs. It is most often used for storing the culinary herbs. Parsley, thyme, basil, coriander, celery, oregano, etc. are some of the herbs that are frozen for storing. You can add them directly in your recipe.

The herbs like lavender and borage need to be harvested before they are fully grown. If you want the herbs for seeds, harvest them when they begin to change color. The root crops like golden seal should be dug at the end of the summer or at the time of early fall.
Below are some tips for harvesting your garden herbs:
• Give sufficient time for new plants for growing in the garden before the first harvest
• Harvest the herbs on the same day when you will use them to preserve their freshness
• Do not harvest one third of plant at a time
• Use sharp scissors for making cut on stem and do not pluck the leaves
• Harvest the culinary herbs before the plant produces blooms
• While harvesting the annual herbs, harvest from the growing tip of the stem to increase the leaves and reduce flowering

The herb gardening tips will help you to know the proper harvesting techniques for different types of herbs. You can follow these tips for maintaining your herb garden properly.