If you’re not the type of person that wants to spend their time managing an elaborate fruit or vegetable garden, you might consider planting and maintaining an herb garden. While the product might not seem as significant, you’ll still enjoy the constant availability of fresh, delicious herbs to flavor your meals with.
First you’ll want to choose the herbs that you’ll plant. You might have a hard time doing this because of the huge scope of herbs available. But the best way to choose is to do what I did; just look at what you have in your kitchen. By planting your own collection of these herbs, you can save money on buying them from the grocery store while having the added benefit of freshness. Some of the herbs you might start with include rosemary, sage, basil, dill, mint, chives, and parsley among others.
When choosing an area to put your herb garden, you should remember that the soil should have extremely good drainage. If the dirt gets watered and stays completely saturated, you have no chance of ever growing a healthy plant. One of the best ways to fix the drainage problem is to dig a foot deep in the soil, and put a layer of crushed rocks down before replacing all the soil. This will allow all that water to escape, thus saving your plants.
When you are ready to begin planting herbs, you might be tempted to buy the more expensive plants from the store. However, with herbs it is much easier to grow them from seed than it is with other plants. Therefore you can save a bundle of money by sticking with seed packets. Some herbs grow at a dangerously fast rate. For example, if you plant a mint plant in an open space then it will take over your entire garden in a matter of days. The best way to prevent this problem is to plant the more aggressive plants in pots (with holes in the bottom to allow drainage, of course). When it comes time to harvest the herbs you have labored so hard over, it can be fatal to your plant to take off too much. If your plant isn’t well established, it isn’t healthy to take any leaves at all, even if it looks like its not using them. You should wait until your plant has been well established for at least several months before taking off any leaves. This wait will definitely be worth it, because by growing unabated your plant will produce healthily for years to come.
Once you’ve harvested your delicious home grown herbs, you’ll want to use them in cooking. Why else would you have grown them? Well first the process begins with drying them out. This is easily achieved by placing them on a cookie sheet and baking them 170 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 to 4 hours. After they’re sufficiently dried to be used in cooking, you can consult the nearest cookbook for instructions on using them to effectively flavor a dish.
If you want to store your herbs for later usage, you should keep them in a plastic or glass container. Paper or cardboard will not work, because it will absorb the taste of the herbs. During the first few days of storage, you should regularly check the container and see if any moisture has accumulated. If it has, you must remove all the herbs and re-dry them. If moisture is left from the first drying process, it will encourage mildew while you store your herbs. Nobody likes mildew.
So if you enjoy herbs or gardening, or both, then you should probably consider setting up an herb garden. It might require a little bit of work at first to set it up for optimal drainage, and pick what herbs you want to grow. But after the initial hassle, it’s just a matter of harvesting and drying all your favorite herbs.
Watch the video related to growing mushroom
www.fungifun.org My longest time lapse so far. 1661 images were photographed over a time period of 5 days, 18 hours and 25 minutes. A Canon PowerShot G3 digital camera connected to a computer was programmed to take one shot every 5 minutes. Processing was done with Photoshop and VirtualDub. The substrate was rye, the casing consisted of peat moss, vermiculite and crushed limestone.
Help answer the question about growing mushroom
We have wild horse mushroom's growing like crazy in our yard under the tarp that is under the bed of rocks. We?We have wild horse mushrooms growing like crazy in our yard under the tarp that is under the bed of rocks. We have two small dogs that we sometimes find nibbling on them. We try to "harvest" the mushrooms as best we can. How dangerous is this for our dogs? I was hoping they had some kind of inner instinct but they seem a little dim, cute but dim. How bad are these mushrooms for them?
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Read about how to grow tomatoes and how to grow grass at the How to Grow Things website.
The list you give includes woody Mediterranean climate plants that will do well in Phoenix outdoors. Rosemary is a shrub that does not like to be in wet or humid conditions. Rosmarinus officinalis does best it a rather dry light, sandy loam. On a chalk soil it grows smaller, but is more fragrant.
http://www.gardeninginarizona.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Rosmarinus_officinalis.html
http://www.gardeninginarizona.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Rosmarinus_Prostratus.html
Oregano and thyme are winter hardy herbs that need full sun. Oregano creeps so can grow along steps or rock walls easily. It will form a mound that can be sheared into shape. The major species include Origanum marjorana also known as sweet marjoram and Italian oregano O. vulgare ssp. hirtum.
O. marjorana can be tender but O. vulgare is hardy. They need a well drained, alkaline soil of no more than average fertility to flourish. They can become bitter with to much fertilizer and grow lax, spindly foliage developing poor fragrance because the oils are not made & stored properly when growing quickly.
http://www.gardeninginarizona.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Origanum_vulgare.html
Thyme is an enormous family divided into bush and creeping types. Orange balsam blooms first while English and Wedgwood bloom last in the bush category.
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/thyvulgarisorange.htm
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/thyvulgarisenglish.htm
They are choosy about their soil. Thyme are shallow rooted so are easily frost heaved completely out of the soil in cold climates. In humid or damp areas they can develop rot.
They like sandy or rocky soil that is 1/2 sand and 1/2 average loam. They do not like acid soil so need lime or oyster shells added in those conditions. They need an inert mulch layer to keep surface moisture down but offering a chance to self-layer the lateral branches. An organic mulch will work because you are in an arid area.
Bush thymes may be trimmed in spring or after flowering to as much as 50% of their height or they can do well with several light shearings removing less than an inch at a time. Heavy shearing should never be done in summer. They require a dense mound of foliage to protect their main branches from desiccation in winter.
http://www.gardeninginarizona.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Thymus_vulgaris.html
Basil is tender and needs much the same conditions as tomatoes. They like a dry surfaced, well drained soil. This means the water should be infrequent on the surface but available at depth. This means they do very well with flood irrigation or soaker hoses.
A bark or gravel mulch aids in keeping the surface dry. Thick organic mulch or sawdust keep the soil too cool for me in zone 7b but might work well for you. Poor soils impart a clove-like flavor while rich soils and excess moisture produce the licorice flavor.
Some basils are leggier than others so are less attractive outside the kitchen garden. Those with the best shape include Dark Opal, Spice, and Krishna.
http://www.gardeninginarizona.com/Plants/Lamiaceae/Ocimum_basilicum.html
Chives, Allium schoenoprasum, like a richer loam that stays moist. In hot areas they need shade at midday. These definately need an organic mulch. They may be a winter crop for you.
http://herbsociety.org/factsheets/chives.pdf.
Order the spores off a trusted internet site, Remember to do your research!