How To Grow Culinary Herbs and Plants (Without a Yard)

68 CommentsFriday • May 8, 2009 • by Ari

With all the news about the recession you might think that gourmet eating is a thing of the past, but one of the best ways to get around smaller grocery budgets is planting an edible garden. Fresh herbs like sage, thyme and oregano growing on your doorstep will not only spice up your cooking and baking but will save you oodles of cash. Gone are the days when you have to spend $4 for a container of fresh rosemary, when all you need is a teaspoon. Gone too are the days of substituting dry herbs for the more flavorful fresh variety. Gourmet cooking, here we come!

The cost of starting a nice sized culinary garden is minimal. We spent around $105 buying all the plants, soil and fertilizer for our garden this year. We already had the planting containers, but large clay pots cost about $2 and window boxes around $4. For this initial investment we’ll have the benefit of fresh herbs all summer long and well into the Fall. Last year my herbs lasted until late November before winter finally did them in.

Don’t have a yard? That’s no reason to forgo the pleasures of a garden. The truth is that you only need a few things to coax luscious leaves from your plants:

1. A few large pots, or a window box you can hang off a sunny window or porch
2. Good quality soil
3. Fertilizer
4. Sun and water

Since my husband and I live in an apartment I like using large clay pots and long rectangular window boxes for my garden. When using these I put only one plant in each pot and no more than four small plants in a large window box, leaving ample space between each plant so they can grow. This year I also took advantage of a large wooden planter in the driveway, removing the dead plants that were there when we moved in and replacing the dirt with a mixture of organic planting soil (organic is key since you’re going to eat these plants) and organic fertilizer. I especially like Cockadoodle Doo Organic Fertilizer, which my plants thrive on. The salad greens you see pictured at the bottom of this post were teeny-tiny when I planted them three weeks ago. Now look at them! Each leaf is at least twenty times the size it was when I first brought the plant home.

When planting more than one kind of plant in a pot I pair them according to their soil, water and sun requirements, then place them outside accordingly. The mint and spearmint need semi-sun, so they live on the railing of my back porch. The sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary and wild strawberries need full sun, so they are in front of my apartment where they can meet the rising sun each morning. Once planted, the only effort on my part is watering the plants or, sometimes, letting nature take care of them. The spring showers we had in Connecticut this past week have been doing all the work for me lately.

Helpful tip: When substituting fresh herbs for dry ones in recipes, remember the 1:3 rule. For every one teaspoon of dry herbs you need three teaspoons of fresh herbs. The same goes for tablespoons.

Below are the plants I’m growing this season. I took the photos this morning and thought I’d share them with you, along with information on how you can grow your own edible garden this year.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to head out to your local nursery this weekend and purchase seedlings to plant around your home. Are you game?

Spearmint (pictured above) has short-stalked, oval leaves that are bright green or sometimes grayish in color. It is the least pungent mint species and gives off a subtle minty aroma. Plant your mint seedling in a large pot with moist, fertile soil, then place it in a location that will get semi-sun. During the summer it’s a good idea to trim the plant by cutting off leaves periodically (save the leaves!), which encourages the plant to continue growing throughout the warmer months.

You can use mint leaves – fresh, frozen or dried – in cooking and baking. One of my favorite ways to use freshly picked mint leaves is by grinding 1/4 cup of leaves with 4 to 5 tablespoons of granulated sugar, which I then toss with sliced peaches, nectarines, blackberries and seedless grapes. The resulting fruit salad is elegant and tastes divine.

Sage is much loved in my home and way back in 2007 I wrote about the history of sage in the Middle Ages and among the Native Americans. There are different varieties of sage but the best ones for culinary use are the ones with plain, narrow leaves and the non-flowering broad leaf variety. Plant your sage in well-drained, rich soil that gets full sun. My two sage plants share a window box (which hangs off my front porch) with two thyme plants. As with mint, it’s a good idea to nip off leaves to encourage the plant to grow – but that isn’t an issue if you’re already using this delightful herb in your kitchen! Recipes on Baking and Books that feature sage include: Savory Rosemary Sage Bread, Rustic Sweet Potato Muffins with Fresh Sage, Fettuccine with Mascarpone and Sage-Walnut Butter, and Butternut Squash Lasagne with Fresh Sage & Thyme .

Thyme has been popular since ancient times, when it was used to treat digestive complaints and respiratory problems. Its small gray-green leaves have a strong flavor, so a little goes a long way in the kitchen. In addition to some of the sage recipes that feature thyme (above), you can also try this bruschetta recipe (shown with Strawberry Melonade).

Thyme thrives in well-drained fertile soil that receives full sun, which is why I paired it with sage in the window box. I mentioned this earlier but I’ll say it again: if you are planting more than one kind of plant in a single container it’s important that they have the same requirements in terms of soil, moisture and light. Thyme flowers can also be used in cooking and you should clip your plant after it flowers.

The large wooden planting container in the photo above sits at the bottom of my front steps. Because of its size we planted three different things in it: rosemary, oregano and two strawberry plants in the middle. Strawberry plants tend to grow at sonic speed so it was a bit of a risk to plant them with herbs, but I wanted fresh strawberries so much I couldn’t resist!

In ancient times rosemary was not only a favored cooking herb (especially in stews) but a charm – housewives would hang sprigs of it on their front doors to ward off evil. It is a medicinally valuable plant that is used to treat depression, migraines and digestive disorders as well as minor wounds and eczema. In terms of medicinal uses, however, it should be noted that excessive quantities of rosemary can be harmful (not something you have to worry about in cooking since you only use a few teaspoons or tablespoons at a time).

Rosemary thrives in well-drained soil with full sun. The leaves have a bitter, astringent taste that compliments many flavors in food. I often pair it with sage or thyme (just like the Simon & Garfunkel song) and love it in my husband’s Butternut Squash Stew with Rosemary and Tomatoes.

One of the other plants in this pot is oregano, which is an aromatic perennial that loves well-drained, fertile soil and full sun. My plants are pretty young so they haven’t reached their full size yet, but in a month or two the oregano will be bushy and covered in downy grey-green leaves. Oregano has many, many uses, from flavoring meats and salads to tea and beer. Sometimes the essential oils in the leaves are also distilled for use in perfumes or cosmetics. The leaves and flowers can be used in cooking, for instance, when making my Three Cheese Broccoli Calzones or Avocado Enchiladas with Smokey Chipotle Sauce.

The strawberries growing amid the rosemary and oregano are wild strawberries, not the ginormous fruits you find in the supermarket. Wild strawberries are much smaller and sweeter, and grow in woods or grassy places in dry soil with full sun. Sometimes called Wood Strawberries, you can plant these in any kind of well-drained soil except clay. The fruit is ready to eat when it’s deep ruby red, while the leaves can be made into a tea that has diuretic and astringent properties. Some folks even add them to salads, though you have to be careful with this because over-consumption can lead to an allergic reaction.

The last thing I’m growing this season, which I highly recommend, is mesclun greens. Also known as “salad greens” these babies taste so amazing I actually Twittered about their buttery, fresh flavor the other day. Mesclun greens like moist, fertile soil in semi-sun, which is why they’re on my back porch along with the mint. You can add the leaves to salads or, better yet, make them into flavorful sandwiches. For instance: an avocado sandwich with monterey jack cheese. Spread about 1 tablespoon of light mayonaise on two thick slices of artisan bread, then layer mashed avocado (mixed with a splash of lime juice), sprouts, thin slices of monterey jack cheese, seeded tomato slices and mesclun greens. Serve with homemade tomato soup. Enter heaven.

So, are you ready to plant your garden?

A little culinary song to wrap things up.

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Don’t forget about the monthly book giveaway! April’s winner has been posted on the giveaway page. May’s book giveaway includes 3 copies of “Mix Shake Stir: Recipes from Danny Meyer’s Acclaimed New York City Restaurants,” by Danny Meyer. Just in time for the summer months this book includes over 100 recipes for bar classics, signature favorites, and original, refreshing libations – from the Modern’s elegant mojito made with champagne and rose water to Tabla’s Pomegranate Gimlet.