Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme ...

 The familiar list of herbs from the song Scarborough Fair always comes to mind when I am busy with my herb troughs. 

When looking back on previous blog posts about my herbs, I realised that I last redid these herb planters completely in 2017 so it was long overdue to empty them & refresh. 

The planters are on a raised area between my neighbour & us - there is a service pipe that is on the raised bit hence the need for loose planters to access it if needed. The other advantage is that being used for cooking, the herbs need to be out of the way of visiting dogs etc so this space works well. The side return contains out many bins & recycling bins so it is the 'working side' of our house. 

I eased out the pot bound herbs I wanted from each trough. For some reason the planters had a wild violet that had taken over in them & as nice as the little violet flowers are, they are not herbs. Once the herbs were out, the root bound remainders & the soil was popped on a garden bed by the bird feeder where it will break down & I do not mind if the violets take root there. 

I put a generous layer of leaf mould from our own tree in each trough before adding fresh potting soil to each. The two 60L bags were soon gone on the 4 troughs - it is deceptive how much soil each one takes. 

The herbs were then replanted again & 2 new ones added - a new mint & a bronze fennel. 

I did not empty out the 5th planter with the mint / lemon balm planter because I had used up all 120L of potting soil on the other 4. However, having space with emptying & repotting, I used one of the other troughs as a second one for mint. I bought a strawberries & cream mint at the local market last week - I wonder what it will taste like? It will be nice in mint tea or on stewed fruit ... 

I was gifted this lovely set of ceramic herb labels by daughter, made by a potter in her village, & they are a perfect reminder of the most used herbs. 

It is a good time to buy in the ones that are missing - my sage had become woody & so had the rosemary; However, they are moved to the garden where they will hopefully continue to do their thing. 

I will buy in a replacement sage plant; I have 2 rosemary plants I grew last winter from cuttings so they are in the refreshed planters. 

I might relocate my lemon grass from the conservatory to the troughs for summer. It was grown from the base of a supermarket lemon grass used in cooking. 

Which herbs are essential to your gardening & cooking? Inspire me please as I will be looking for some additional ones. 

Thank you for stopping by, it is always appreciated. 

Dee 🥗🪴🌱🫚

UPDATED with additional herb planting