6 Tips to grow your own kitchen herbs as a beginner!

Sheetal Bhandari Sheetal Bhandari
Country estate vegetable garden, Roeder Landscape Design Ltd Roeder Landscape Design Ltd Country style gardens
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Growing your own herbs can a greatly fulfilling experience. Sowing seeds, planting saplings, watering them, tilling the soil and watching your hardwork payoff as a lush green kitchen garden can be therapeutic for many. Add to this, your very own home grown organic vegetables and a productive green patch in the house; and you have all the reasons why you must take a plunge and start growing your own vegetables. If you live in a multi-storied apartment, there are ways and means to get you started too on this journey. Just a little bit of motivation and some brilliant ideas from experts will help you to kickstart this process. There are some basics though for all prospective herb growers and we give you some tips that will put you in the right stead. 

Take in the details about the space

Get to know the air and water situation in the are where you would like to grow the herbs, whether it's your front yard, backyard, balcony or terrace. How's the climate in general where you live? Is it hot or cold all year round or do you have good 4 distinct seasons? How much sun do you get? How much area would you like to cover? Do you have sufficient water supply for all the herbs that you need? Some varieties need a lot of water, some like green chilly, not that much. Take stock of all these factors that will help you narrow down what all you will be doing and how.

Work on the soil

We all know its air, water, sun and soil are crucial for any healthy plant. When trying to grow herbs, pay even more attention to the soil. Healthy, organic and nutrient-rich is what you must aim for. Chemical fertilizers are a thing of the past. Natural and organic is the way forward and it is not so difficult to achieve. One of the easiest ways to produce manure is to dig a hole in one corner of your garden and dump your daily wet waste. Vermiculture and composting organic waste are simple cost effective and natural fertilizers.

If you have less space, go vertical

Space needn't be a deterrent for the prospective farmer. Vertical is the mantra when space is a luxury and its true for gardens, storage or even our residential apartments.Go vertical and design a unique kitchen garden in the apparent tiny space but one that is highly productive. A lot of online communities and seed distributors engage clients with vertical garden strategies. You can grow almost any herb in a planter. Get the right pots, tools, soil and seeds and you will have a herb garden right in the balcony. 

Water right

Water is all important factor for healthy plants. Ensure ideal watering and at regular intervals. Over watering is a pretty common cause of plants unable to flourish even when there is right soil, sun and care. This is especially true when you are growing veggies in pots. The limited space cannot sustain any amount of overwatering unlike those grown on earth. Your veggies could be neglected when you are out on a vaccation, so make sure you assign some friendly neighbour to do the job for you.

Don't over fertilize

Fertilization can be pretty tempting. It helps keep your plants away from pests and the like and vegetables, fresh and healthy. But care needs to be taken to not go overboard with this. Use only as much as is necessary when is comes to artificial or chemical based fertilizers as they can seep into the vegetables itself and cause more harm than good by entering the food chain! You want to keep homegrown vegetables as organic as possible. So stay away from those and use natural fertilizers and manure whenever possible. 

Home grown herbs are fruits of your labour. Savouring them can be so much more enjoyable than the store bought ones. With the right tips and tricks, you can achieve the best produce right in your backyard. So why spend anymore in buying from the market when you can get the freshest that there is from across your window? Go ahead and convert your outdoor space to a mini urban farm!

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