Friday 16 September 2011

The Enjoyment Along With Other Benefits Of Growing Your Own Herbs

By Ray Dinate

Growing your own herbs is easy to do and can be very enjoyable as many herbs can be added to culinary dishes to enhance the flavor of our food. You're going to get everything you need to start your own herb garden from the garden center or nursery down the road, and then you'll need just a small spot of garden for planting, or even using pots will get great results. Let us take a look at more closely the assortment of applications and the benefits of growing your own herbs.

Improving the flavor and color of food has to be the one use of herbs that a majority of people are familiar with. Herbs are associated with food preparation, and they are used even in the most basic and humble dishes like soups and salads. There may be something thrilling about using ingredients raised and harvested by yourself, and perhaps that helps to explain the lift they bring to the taste of many meat dishes.

A little experimentation is often great fun and results in tasty variations of your everyday meals. Over the ages a variety of illnesses and maladies have been successfully treated with herbs, many of which are credited with curative powers. Many natural remedies are available for various health complaints which are easily obtained with a bit of exploration.

These herbs are employed either fresh or dried and can be taken internally, such as in drinking teas or tinctures or used externally by being added to poultices and creams that can be applied to affected areas. If you struggle to fall asleep, take camomile to calm and soothe you into a peaceful slumber, while if an upset stomach is your problem then the way to settle it is with peppermint tea. One more popular manner of using herbs that you have grown yourself is to chop them and dry them.

Use them as you did the fresh version, in teas and as a culinary flavor. One more use for dried herbs is just as a decoration and for making potpourri. The aromatic smell of dried herbs can easily relax and please at the same time. A handful of dried lavender connected with twine and hung from a kitchen ceiling offers an attractive countryside feel and provides the lovely lavender color and scent.

A small garden or just a little space is enough to fruitfully grow herbs at home. The way mint flourishes in pots goes to show that pots are very good for growing herbs in. Some other plants grown close to mint usually are not advisable, since its active and lusty spreading habit will soon suffocate them. When grown inside a pot, however, this propensity is well controlled.

As with most container gardening you will need to water the pots on a regular basis to prevent them from drying out. Another benefit of growing herbs at home is that it provides an affordable and handy opportunity to present children to gardening. This participation can be extended to cooking, by permitting them to add the herbs they have grown and witness the change in the flavor and aroma of a dish.

An excellent way to expose children to cultivating herbs is to help them to sow some cress seeds from a packet and watch them grow on a windowsill. These are sure to be successful at it, and then there's the fun of cutting it to add a tasty bite to their meals. There are a myriad of good reasons for starting a herb garden, and the quicker you start the sooner you will enjoy the rewards.


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