Sowing Herb Seeds
The Green Thumb Series

O

ne of my favorite pleasures of the season is small-scale gardening.

Every year I grow a small herb garden on my back deck and it’s so much fun to tend to a fast-growing assortment of herb plants.

This year, I’m also sowing herb seeds and throughout this post… I’ll show you just how easy this part of the gardening process can be.

It’s wonderful to drop a few simple seeds in the dirt and watch them slowly sprout from the soil and reach for the sun.

I also buy quite a few established herb plants every year and plant them in ready soil for near-immediate gratification.

You can see some of my previous herb garden efforts here, here and here.

I typically use peat pots to sow my herb seeds but this year, I also decided to try egg shell containers just for the fun of it.

As you use eggs for your various recipes, just save the egg shell halves.  I used my egg shell collection efforts to make a delicious quiche (which I’ll share here later in an upcoming post).

You’ll need a good seed compost which you can pick up at most garden shops or nurseries.

Fill the egg shells with soil.

This year, I’m sowing a nice collection of herbs including two kinds of Oregano, Lemon Balm, Basil and Cilantro just to name a few.

During early growth, many sprout varieties look very similar.  I have a super easy way to label the shells so my herbs don’t mixed up as they begin to break through the dirt.

If you have a printer at home, you can make these markers very quickly.

Line up your seed packets and lay them on the printer glass and make several copies.

Then, simply cut the herb headings right off the top of the copies.

Trim the excess paper around each name.

Use a thin strip of tape to attach a cake-pop stick to the back of each label.

Voila, instant herb seedling markers.

Insert a marker in each egg shell.

Then, add the corresponding seeds to the soil making sure to space them about 2-3 centimeters apart.

 

I’m still relying on my trusty peat pots to go along with my egg shell containers.

For these markers, I used a rubber stamp to add a cute image to the top of a Popsicle stick and a marker to add the name of each of the herbs.

These markers are sweet, simple and oh-so cute.

Place your starter containers in a well-let, sunny window and watch and wait for everything to start to come alive.

After significant sprouting, transplant the entire container to larger herb garden pots for the harvest to come.

The peat pots and the egg shells are biodegradable and will be absorbed into whatever soil-filled pot you plant them in.

Stay tuned, I’ll be sure to give you a look at how my little herb garden is growing later in an upcoming post.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

I’ll see you back here next time. ♥