Designing a herb bed needs a plan. After all, it should bring you good yields and, best of all, look beautiful. Let us suggest a few examples of herbal plants as a guide below!

The herb spiral is a popular element in permaculture

Planting herbs - a good plan is needed

It is not without reason that herbs are currently booming. After all, the aromatic plants are not only a diverse and extremely healthy addition to the kitchen. Many well-established and new ideas are also spreading for creative homemade things in the culinary and body care sector.

In addition to using them as cooking spices, you can use herbs, for example, for exquisite delicacies such as liqueurs or your own vinegars or for homemade cosmetics and care products such as soaps, bath pearls and essential extracts.

Examples of possible herbal uses:

  • cooking seasoning
  • Refining delicatessen
  • Homemade cosmetics and care products

Instructions for planting a herb bed

In order to create a herb bed according to your usage plan, you should follow the following steps:

  • Choice of herbs
  • Plan for the type of bed

Choice of herbs

On the one hand, this decides what you want to do with your aromatic plants. If they are to be used primarily in the kitchen, they should of course correspond to your personal taste and cooking habits. If you are looking for special uses in the form of healing extracts or soap aromas, you can choose the appropriate varieties with healing effects or an intense fragrance.

Plan for the type of bed

Do you want lush and aromatic yields above all else? Then a functional herb bed with an easily accessible and practical structure or in the form of a raised bed is suitable. Would you also like an aesthetic added value for your garden? Then various herb bed shapes are recommended, which you can design with stones, structure ideas and additional decoration.

What you need to consider when planting

Basically, you can of course plant the herbs that you like and taste the most. However, in order to cultivate them successfully, you should still have a few rules in mind. This applies in particular to:

  • The choice of location
  • The Neighborhood of Plants

When it comes to location, it is best to orientate yourself according to the needs of the herbs that should find their way into your aroma oasis. Basically, a sunny place is good for most herbs, but of course it is especially good for Mediterranean varieties such as lavender, oregano, basil or thyme. Native herbs such as fennel, chamomile, mint or parsley can also thrive in partial shade.

Of course, the needs of the location also determine which herbs you can best combine in the bed. But there are also certain individual tolerances or intolerances on a vegetative level. For example, perennial varieties do not like being surrounded by annual herbs if this means that the soil next door is rearranged every year. In addition, annual and perennial herbs have very different water requirements.

The following combinations of floor coverings and above-ground characteristics complement each other particularly well:

  • Rosemary, thyme and oregano
  • basil, chives and parsley
  • Lemon balm and burnet
  • sage and oregano

Instructions for 3 herb bed ideas

  • herb snail
  • raised bed
  • plant stones

herb snail

The herb spiral is particularly suitable for Mediterranean, heat-loving herbs, as it is traditionally structured with heat-storing natural stones. At the same time, it allows the planting of herbs with different soil and climate requirements due to the descending structure.

You need for the herb snail

  • natural stones
  • potting soil
  • sand
  • rubble
  • compost

Create a small mound with a maximum diameter of 2 m and a height of 80 cm, which you structure with a spiral wall made of flat natural or field stones. Fill the gaps with a mixture of potting soil, sand and rubble, such as crushed lime. In the lower part you can make the substrate a little richer in humus with compost - for local herbs such as chervil or parsley.

raised bed

The raised bed has two main advantages: It relieves your back when working and harvesting and allows a generously enriched and heat-insulating substrate. It is therefore particularly suitable for nutrient-hungry herbs such as chives and wild garlic, basil, lovage, lemon verbena or mint.

You need for the herb raised bed:

  • A finished box or wooden material to build yourself
  • potting soil
  • compost
  • sand

For the herb raised bed, as with vegetable or flower raised beds, you can either use a prefabricated raised bed box or play the craftsman yourself. Instructions for building it yourself is a separate chapter - and widely available on the Internet. In contrast to raised vegetable beds, however, the filling should not be quite as nutritious - because even the types that require more nutrients are comparatively frugal compared to many types of vegetables.

Therefore, do not use layers of horse manure etc. in the soil mixture and just be content with some compost. A little drainage through sand should still be guaranteed.

plant stones

For a herb bed made of plant stones, you don't need to put in much effort - the typical half-ring-like stones can be very easily stacked on top of each other on a slope that is as sun-oriented as possible, leaving individual troughs free for different types of herbs. Of course, you can also fill these with individual substrate compositions depending on your nutrient requirements.

Similar to the herb snail, southern herbs should be planted in the higher troughs because of their increased need for sun.

Category:

Vegetable garden