Herbs have many advantages; the most common uses include aromatherapy, medicinal, seasoning and flavouring in foods and salads. You don’t need a green thumb or a huge plot of land to reap the benefits of growing fresh herbs. You can even grow them in small pots in a small sunny patch of your balcony.
I manage to grow basil, oregano, parsley, mint, tulsi (holy basil), ajwain(carom seeds), curry patta, green chilli, cherry tomatoes and chamomile in my apartment’s balcony. Initially I started growing them because they were not always freshly available. But now it has become a passion to grow my own organic herbs and vegetables. From my experience these are the advantages of having your own herb garden.
- Fresh Organic Herbs – One of the best benefits of growing your own herbs is having fresh herbs right at your fingertips. If уоu produce уоur оwn herbs then yоu саn choose nоt tо uѕе chemical pesticides аnd fertilizers.
- Good For Health – Adding fresh herbs to your diet is a great way to boost your meal’s vitamin value.
- Good Exercise – Approximately 300 calories an hour can be burned just by gardening. It can also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol or prevent diabetes, heart disease, depression and osteoporosis when practiced on a regular basis.
- Saves Money – The local grocer doesn’t always stock all the herbs you are looking for. When this happens, you go to a specialty store, where you pay a huge amount. After the initial investment of getting your herb garden started, the money you save will be your own.
- Relieves Stress – Tending, or just visiting a herb garden can do a world of good towards relieving all that built up stress that daily life likes to give us. The sights and scents that abound in a herb garden delight the senses and revitalize the soul.
- Make pretty gifts – Growing your own herbs means that you will always have more than enough herbs than you can possibly use yourself, leaving you plenty extra to share with friends, family, and neighbours. Dried fresh herbs in pretty jars make wonderful gifts too!
- Aromatherapy – Relaxing herbs such as chamomile, lavender, mint, rosemary, oregano, thyme, chive and sage can be dried and used in potpourri, simmered in pot on the stove to release their fragrance, hung upside down and used as natural air freshener, wrapped in a gauze bag and used in a bath or even dried and steeped to make herbal tea.
- Drying Herbs – To preserve the freshness from a herb garden, simply gather the herbs early in the morning while the dew is still fresh and tie them together at the bottom. Hang them upside down and allow them to dry. When dry they can either be left in their dried state or crumbled into a container for later use.
- Seasonings and Salads – The most common uses of herbs. No herb garden would be complete without coriander, dill, basil, oregano, sage, thyme, chives or mint to season up dinner each and every night.
Herb gardening produces the freshest herbs with more flavour than herbs purchased in a store. It’s also a lot cheaper to buy a package of seeds and plant many herbs than it is to purchase them in the supermarket. It’s a wonderful hobby for all age groups.
The herbs on my wish list now are rosemary and thyme. What’s on yours?