Creative tips and tricks for a cheap and easy herb garden

Whether you’ve been contemplating starting your own garden, or have a garden that you’ve tended lovingly for years, you can always nurture your inner gardener by growing your own herbs. A herb garden is a type of garden that’s quite easy to maintain and flourish, and gives you the additional joy of seasoning your food with your own home-grown herbs.

1. Mason jar gardens: Use mason jars placed along a window sill or a ledge in your kitchen. Since there are no holes for drainage you have to be careful not to overwater your plants. A good way around this is to put some stones in the bottom of the jar so that the water sits there and not in the soil.
2. Recycle plastic bottles: If you use a lot of plastic bottles that you generally just toss into the recycling bin, give them another use before you do. Cut off the tops of the bottles and use them exactly the way you would use mason jars.
3. Tops of bottles: While we’re at it, don’t throw away the top of the plastic bottles you cut off. You can use them as planters as well!
4. Tea cups: Use your old tea cups and saucers to create beautiful planters for your herb garden. This will also add a splash of colour to your day, every time you look at your motley collection of herbs in tea cups.
5. Shoe organiser planters: The regular old shoe organisers that are hung over wardrobe doors can ingeniously be repurposed to be hanging planters for a herb garden on one side of your kitchen wall, or even outdoors if you have a place to hang and easily access it. As the shoe organisers are usually made of cloth, there won’t be a water clogging problem.
6. Use your existing garden: Herbs make wonderful companion plants to vegetables, and can also be interspersed into a flower garden to discourage pests.
7. Kitchen pots: Use old teapots, pots and pans as planters to arrange along your window sill. This gives a quirky look to your whole herb garden and can make for great conversation starters.

Do you have a herb garden? Do you have any other tips and tricks to add?