[Hardfeather]

I started a herb garden this year.

I've always had a few types of mint about the place...ginger, apple, and spearmint (for the butterflies), but this year I built a wee dry stane wall round a bit of the garden at the kitchen door. I covered it with broken pots on the bottom, and filled it with a mixture of moisture-retaining compost and top soil.

Our local garden centre has really got going with the herbs this year, so I bought Salad Burnett, Sage 'Honey Melon' variety, which has a very attractive red tubular flower, Chamomile, Basil 'Magic Mountain', Lemon Thyme, Marjoram, and Pineapple Mint. My wife brought Chives and Parsely home from the supermarket, so I split the bunches and planted them along the back. I also moved some Ginger Mint from another bed to help fill the bed.

Along the front I planted Verbena 'Peruviana', which creeps and has a vibrant red flower head made up of lots of tiny flowers, similar to Forget-me nots, and it trails along and over the top of the stone. Some house leeks and stone crop at ground level and in the cracks finishes it off.

The whole bed has gone mad! I've had to thin it several times. I just put too much in, really

I love herbs and I've already started planning another area for more.

[Samantha]

Sounds just lovely!... I have a few pots of herbs indoors in the window.. basil, chives, mint... I also have a chilie plant and pepper plant .. all doing wonderfully

My advice to anyone starting with herbs is pick one you use a lot and build up your collection from there... herbs can be tricky... or they can take over your garden (like mint which my advice is to always plant this in a bucket)

Sam

[smallholder in the city]

That sounds great. Did you see the herb garden spiral they made on gardener's world last friday.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t6tl5

I'm trying to figure out where I could put one in our garden. At the moment I've got all my herbs in pots. My husbands makes our own sausages and there is such a difference in flavour when he uses herbs fresh from the garden rather than dried or even fresh cut supermarket ones.

[doganjo]

That looks really good, might try it.