1/1/2024 0 Comments English thyme plantIf you're shopping around on your own, look for words like "food grade" and "untreated" to ensure you're using the most natural of materials for your organic thyme plants. Here are three options for easy herb garden planters on Amazon. My favorites are cedar, steel, and terra cotta clay. When selecting your container, choose natural materials. Learn more about setting up an herb garden. I like to have English thyme, French thyme, and lemon thyme on hand. I also recommend picking something at least a foot wide so that you can grow some of thyme's cousins or several different types of thyme in one container. To grow thyme, pick a planter, pot, or container that's at least 6 inches deep. A raised garden filled with soil that drains quickly feels a lot more like home to your herb. This is mostly because I've usually gardened in areas with clay soil, which thyme does not like. I've found the most success with growing thyme in a raised garden or container, rather than in the ground. While buying mature plants is more expensive than cheap seeds or free cuttings, thyme should hopefully last a while in your garden and more than make up for your investment. In my experience, the more local the nursery you buy your herb plants from, the better. Most of them will have traveled quite a distance before reaching the store and have most likely been treated with fungicide or synthetic fertilizers so they look great when you see them at the store. As always, avoid buying herbs from big box stores. If you want to be able to enjoy thyme in your garden immediately, consider buying a mature plant from a nursery or a local grower. Water thoroughly after transplanting while the plant recovers from its operation. Replant the first half and take the second to transplant into your garden. (We're all about free plants over here!) Pull the plant's root ball from the soil and use a hori hori or a sharp spade to divide it into two. Thyme is also easily divided, so if you know someone with a mature thyme plant, you could also ask them for permission to divide their herb in spring or early fall. Transfer to a pot once you see several inches of roots. Take a few cuttings from a mature plant, remove the lower leaves, and place the stems in a small glass of fresh water in a sunny windowsill while you wait for roots to form. Many herbs, thyme included, are easy to propagate. Thyme seedlings are slow to grow, which is why we recommend planting thyme from a cutting or a mature plant purchased from the store. Read more on how to overwinter herbs indoors. While it doesn't produce as many leaves as it does outside, it continues growing moderately until I can move it back outdoors in the spring. I've had a lot of success transitioning thyme indoors each year. If you have a sunny window sill, preferably one that's south-facing, you can pot up thyme and keep it inside over winter. If you want to be able to continue harvesting from thyme over winter in a colder climate, consider moving your herb indoors. In a colder climate, thyme will die back during the winter and then send up new growth in the spring. It can survive the winter in many places, even brief periods of frost, but will halt its growth. That means some gardeners can have fresh thyme all year long! Can thyme survive winter? It can even hang on in the heat of summer. In places with milder winters, thyme can thrive into the cool months of the year and continue its growth as an evergreen. Perennials are your woody herbs that either continue growing throughout the entire year in moderate climates or, in colder places, die back and then return from their roots for another year or two of growth once the weather warms. Thyme, like rosemary and oregano, is a perennial herb. It's definitely an herb worth having on hand, so without further ado, here's how to plant, grow, and harvest your own organic thyme. Speaking of cooking, thyme will add an earthy, citrusy flavor to your meals. Creeping thyme makes great ground cover, but when we're talking about herb gardens, we'll mostly be looking at upright varieties-the kind you'll want to harvest from and enjoy in your cooking as much as possible. There are actually two main varieties of thyme: creeping and upright. If you let your thyme flower, the pretty little blooms will attract bees just when it's time for your tomatoes, cucumbers, and other fruiting plants to be pollinated. The shallow roots of thyme also make it ideal for growing in containers. Thyme grows quickly and looks lovely draped over the corner of an herb garden or along the edges of a kitchen garden. Thyme is a nutritious herb in the Lamiaceae family, a plant family that does well most seasons of the year in the kitchen garden.
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