This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Sunday 1 December 2013

Herbs in December

This year I've started a little herb garden with rosemary, lavender, mint and thyme. Pictured left you can see two lavender plants and a rosemary bush (centre). I grew the lavender from seed about 2 or 3 years ago and the rosemary I bought in early Summer. Slugs and snails don't seem to bother much with herbs (thankfully). I hope to grow more herbs from seed and add them to this area each year. The wood log was washed up along the local shoreline and I thought it would add some interest along with some slate rock. A work in progress really.
Above: Some of my seed packs - I really enjoy growing things from seed.
Above and Below: Thyme grown from seed this year. It started off so very tiny (above) however,  it has ended up a decent size by the end of Summer (below).
Above: Mint has had its ups and downs over the Summer. It had some sun scorch on the leaves - I suppose from watering at the wrong time of day. I have this plant sunken into the ground in a plastic pot in the hopes that it won't be a thug and take over the bed.
The rosemary thrives even now in December. I used some of it for Thanksgiving Day cooking! I suppose it has been the star herb this year!
Happy Late Thanksgiving wishes to American bloggers!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

9 comments:

  1. That's great Kelli, I've never had much luck with herb seeds, wish I knew why! The driftwood is a really nice feature.

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  2. I noticed today that our rosemary is flowering!

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  3. That's a great start, Kelli. Before you know it you'll have herbs all over the place, because they are so easy to propagate. I have grown thyme from seed a couple of times, but I get frustrated because it grows so slowly. I usually end up buying a few little pots of it at the Garden Centre. We use such a lot of herbs in cooking that it is hard to produce enough! I have taken lots of cuttings of Lavender this Autumn, in the hope of having a good display of it next Summer. Some of them are obviously growing, so maybe I'll be lucky.

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  4. Love all your herbs grown from seed. The driftwood and slate pebbles look great. Love the color of the chips and won't that look good when the lavender blooms!

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  5. Rosemary, thyme, mint and lavender are minor herb in Indonesia. Only big groceries that sell them.

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  6. I bought some herb plants this year, I've never really bothered much with herbs in the past but I'd like to add to my small collection now.

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  7. Loving the addition of the piece of driftwood to your herb garden, it looks so rustic and just right somehow. I have to say I admire you for having the patience to grow herbs from seed, I tend to rush out to the garden centre and buy a pot or two when the fancy takes me. We have to keep our mint enclosed in an old concrete laundry tub to prevent it from becoming invasive, but it's a small price to pay to have such a useful herb. My most useful herb though would have to be rosemary - you can even use the stems as skewers for kebabs!

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  8. herbs are such a rewarding thing to grow - and yours seem to be thriving

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  9. Our winter is a bit more harsh than yours, but I still managed to harvest a bit of parsley from my garden just yesterday. My new tiered herb garden has been a major success, just like yours.

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