City Cottage 2 | Page 14

Angelica is a marvellous plant to grow

Looking After Your Herbs

In the summer, always keep your herbs moist but if there is a heavy downpour, as we tend to get at the moment, shelter your herbs as they don’t like to be drowned. Feed weekly, preferably with a seaweed-based liquid feed. Pick the leaves regularly, but check for over-picking as they will need some of their leaves to keep growing.

Pick off any flowers that appear in early summer, as this will make for more vigorous growth, but later keep some to dry, or wait until seeds appear and then store some for the following season.

When the weather starts to get colder, place the pots in a sheltered spot or back in the greenhouse, or bring them into the kitchen so you can continue to use them in your cooking easily.

If your sage or thyme is getting too big for its pot, just transplant into a slightly larger pot and top up with some extra fresh compost. This is best done on a bright, sunny day. Again, water well and allow to stand in a sunny spot to recover.

What about Pests and Disease?

Herbs have a good deal of natural protection from pests, such as green fly and black fly, so they are not really too much of a problem. However, slugs and snails are rather partial to basil leaves and some like marjoram. I tend to grow both of these indoors, so avoiding this problem.

There is a disease called rust, which looks just like its name suggests, which can be a problem, particularly on mint. This often happens after very wet weather and/or if plants are grown too close together, so protect your plants from too much rain and give them breathing space. If it does succumb, cut the plant right down to the ground and it will reappear healthily the next season.

Another problem that can occur if plants are grown too close together is a white, powdery mildew. In this case cut back and thin out the plants as this will help to resolve the problem.