Herbs! This week you’ll learn about which herbs you can grow to improve your health, which herbs to grow if you want to add flavor and dimension to cooking, and which herbs are just fun to grow regardless of what you’re using them for. Learn about partial sun herbs, how to water and harvest your herbs and which herbs grow well together. Want even more home and gardening tips? Stream some of your favorite HGTV shows on discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/digit to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Herbs! This week you’ll learn about which herbs you can grow to improve your health, which herbs to grow if you want to add flavor and dimension to cooking, and which herbs are just fun to grow regardless of what you’re using them for. Learn about partial sun herbs, how to water and harvest your herbs and which herbs grow well together.
Want even more home and gardening tips? Stream some of your favorite HGTV shows on discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/digit to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://dig-it.simplecast.com/episodes/herbs
KELLY SMITH-TRIMBLE: Hi this is Dig it! I'm Kelly Smith-Trimble. I'm a master gardener and the author of Vegetable Gardening Wisdom. I'm also the Senior Editorial Director at hgtv.com.
What's good for your health, adds flavor and dimension to your cooking, and is just fun to grow? Herbs. In this episode, we start off with one herb that can be a little controversial. Some people think it tastes like soap. While others love it in their guacamole. Once you get to mid-summer, it can get a little leggy. Let's dig in.
I've seen a lot of posts in our Plant Goals Facebook group about cilantro. And people are questioning when the plant is getting really tall. They're seeing a central stalk on it. And they think something's wrong. But this is actually totally natural. It happens in the summer, in the heat. And it's called bolting. The plant is going to seed. It's flowering and then going to seed to make new plants for next year.
I actually leave the cilantro in my garden after it's bolted for a couple of reasons. One, the flowers are really pretty. But then also, cilantro becomes the spice, coriander. The seed of cilantro is coriander. So I leave it in my garden. And I harvest the green coriander, which is the fresh coriander, to use in recipes.
And then I'll also leave some of the seed to dry on the plant and then harvest it for my spice cabinet to keep coriander in my spice cabinet. So nothing's wrong with your cilantro. But leave it in the garden and you can harvest spices off of it too.
Margie asked, what is the easiest and fastest way to grow lavender? She says, I keep buying lavender plants. And they keep dying. Please help. So the fastest and easiest way is to grow by transplants, like we talked about, rather than seed. But it sounds like you're already doing that.
So let's talk about a couple things with planting and maintenance that may help. The first is that lavender needs to be growing in well-draining soil. That means it's not going to hold water at all. The roots do not like to have water standing.
So if you're growing in a pot, choose a clay pot that will dry out quickly. And if you're growing in the ground, definitely plant it upwards on a slope, so that the water is going to drain down. You can help with that by putting some rocks around it or maybe some pebbles or sand in the soil too. When you're lavender blooms, cut back the stems before the flower buds fully open. Only harvest about one third of the blooms at a time.
So Mary asks, are there any herbs that don't require full sun? And yes. cilantro, parsley, thyme, mint, tarragon, chives, they can all grow in part sun.
Melanie says, my basil is planted in a self-watering container with oregano and parsley. The oregano and parsley are doing well. But the basil is looking very light in color, not the normal bright green I usually see. What am I doing wrong?
So it sounds like your basil could be getting a little too much water. And it may have a root rot. Parsley and oregano can also get that. But they're just not as susceptible to it. So I recommend just holding back on your water a little bit and also, pick off those basal leaves that look bad. See if that helps.
And now we have a question from my friend, co-worker, and fellow plant lover, Jessica Yonker.
JESSICA YONKERS: I'm growing mint indoors. But the other day, I accidentally watered my plant with houseplant fertilizer. Is it still OK? Can I still eat it?
KELLY SMITH-TRIMBLE: Thanks for the question, Jessica. Growing edibles indoors can be tricky. But you picked a good plant with mint. The houseplant fertilizer that you showed is a 10:10:10 fertilizer. That means it has equal amounts of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.
Most vegetable fertilizers are balanced in equal amounts like that too, but usually just smaller numbers, so 5:5:5. But I think it's fine that you used the houseplant fertilizer. I would suggest just watering well and hold back on the fertilizer in the future. Your plant definitely should be OK to eat, so go ahead and mix your mojitos.
Deborah has a question about parsley. She says, my flat leaf parsley has bolted. Can I eat the fresh seeds and dry them on the plant like cilantro? Yes, you can leave the seeds on the parsley-- you can also do this with dill-- and let them dry on the plant and then harvest them. For parsley, you can eat the seeds. But you most likely will want to just save them and replant them. And you can plant parsley in the fall. And in some climates, they will actually grow all the way through winter because it really likes cool weather.
Here's another question. Shikha said, I have a big piece of ginger that has started to sprout. Any tips on planting it and harvesting it? Ginger is one of those fun things that you can regrow from organic grocery store produce.
Sprouts will grow from the bumpy nodes on a piece of ginger root. Ginger is native to tropical areas. So it grows best in warm weather. Start by sprouting it indoors. Then plant in a container with the root below the soil and the sprout above. Place the container in a sunny window inside. Or you can grow it outdoors when the weather is at least above 60 degrees. You'll be growing baby ginger, which is softer and milder than what you usually buy at the grocery.
Lulu asked a question about cilantro and parsley. She said, both my cilantro and parsley came back from last year. But they look like they're starting to bloom. What should I do? Both parsley and cilantro are biennials, which means it takes two years for them to complete their lifecycle. In the first year that you're growing them, they produce a lot of leaves that you can harvest. In the second year, they come back and quickly start getting ready to produce seed. The plants stretch taller and start to flower.
You don't get as many leaves to harvest in that second year. But the flowers are really helpful in the garden because they attract lots of beneficial insects, including some that are natural predators for some garden pests. And if you leave them all the way to producing seed, you can harvest that seed to grow from next time. Or in the case of cilantro, you harvest the seed. And that's actually the spice coriander that you use in your kitchen.
Now here's a question about herbs. Alaya asks, can you plant herbs all in one pot? If you're looking to grow some of the most common herbs, it's important to know first what season they grow best in, whether they're annuals or perennials, and what kind of soil and water conditions they like. Not all herbs are the same.
Rosemary, thyme, oregano, lavender, and sage are all perennial herbs that like dryer soil conditions because they're originally from the Mediterranean climate. You can plant those together. And they'll come back year after year. Just be sure to look at spacing recommendations as some of these can get quite large.
On the other hand, basil, dill, cilantro and parsley are all annuals that like a good amount of water. So you could grow those together. Cilantro and parsley like cooler weather. While basil and dill are more summer plants. They like the heat. Mint is kind of in its own category. It will come back year after year. But it will also spread a lot and take over your pot. So it's best to plant mint in a pot by itself.
The chives are blooming. And they're so pretty. I really love them. Chives are a biennial, so they bloom the second year after planting. Most plants in the onion family are biennials too.
So one thing you can do with chive blossoms is make chive blossom vinegar. All you need to do is pick off the blossoms and pack them in a small jar, and then pour vinegar over them. After that, you let it sit for a couple of weeks before you start using it. And it's just a really like onion-infused vinegar. It tastes really good. But you could also try a white balsamic or maybe a rice vinegar. And those would work too. You just want something that's light and isn't going to mask the color of the blossoms.
Janice said, I'm usually lucky and have a green thumb, except for cilantro. I live in Florida and just can't grow it. Any suggestions? So cilantro can actually be pretty tricky. It seems like it would be a summer plant. But it grows the best in cooler weather, so in spring or fall. Sometimes you can have better luck if you grow it in a little bit of shade, so it keeps the plant cooler. But in a warm climate like Florida, your best bet may be to plant it in the fall and grow through winter until spring, rather than planting in the summer.
Here's one from Chris. He says, how soon can you start harvesting herbs from new plants? You should wait until the plant is just about five or six inches tall or wide. And when you start, harvest from the outside of the plant, rather than from the inside. The inside is where new growth comes from. That's also true for lettuce and greens, so pay attention to that when you're harvesting those too.
Now we have a question from HGTV designer, Brian Patrick Flynn.
BRIAN PATRICK FLYNN: I'm Brian.
HOLLIS: Hollis.
BRIAN PATRICK FLYNN: SPEAKER 3: This is our house. We're in the mountains of North Georgia. And this is the strip of land we have outside of our kitchen, which we can actually plant herbs. So we can start garnishing things since like everybody else we are home way more regularly than we used to be. It's a lot of tree canopy. And we've got all this gravel. So we don't exactly know what we should dig out, where to put the herbs, and what will survive this light situation. And also, tell them what kind of visitors we get on the regular.
HOLLIS: Bears.
BRIAN PATRICK FLYNN: SPEAKER 3: We get black bears here almost every single day. And we have two dogs. So we need herbs that can survive in mostly shaded areas. We need to know if we need to take up some of the gravel for like roots or whatever. And also, what is good for dogs and also can withstand bears, if there is such a thing?
HOLLIS: Or keep them away.
BRIAN PATRICK FLYNN: Yeah, like either of those is good with us. Thanks. Bye.
KELLY SMITH-TRIMBLE: This is a tough one, Brian. But I think I have a few suggestions for you. The first is to try to grow in containers, rather than growing in the ground in this spot. It's wooded. And there'll be a lot of competition from other plants. So containers will be best.
I think you could try galvanized containers. They'll look really nice against that gravel. And they'll also absorb a little bit of heat, which will be good for the plants in a shady spot. Some herbs that grow well in part shade are oregano, mint, parsley, thyme, chives, and cilantro. So you can try those there.
I think that the bears are mostly looking for fruit. So hopefully, you're going to be fine growing herbs in that spot, but let me know. I want to hear about it and definitely send me some pictures of your containers.
For more gardening info, tips, and hacks check out hgtv.com/digit. I'm Kelly Smith-Trimble. Happy gardening.