When did the first belief sprout? Who was the first one to look at a simple plant and think … this could protect us? Heal us? Help us find good fortune?
Yet we do know that throughout history, people of all faiths have used herbs to perform little folk magicks.
Herb gardens come in all shapes and sizes. They can be as modest as a few pot herbs in a windowsill or as large as time and resources permit.
Herbs with a common purpose, such as healing, can be themed together. Or herbs can be grown in a happy podge throughout the garden
This site is an ongoing labour of love chronicling my own journeys in herb gardening.
I live in a lovely little pocket of Zone 6b in the beautiful Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. This herbal only includes the herb plants that can be grown in my gardening zone.
A little note about time and place
I have been growing herbs out here for over twenty years. What does that mean in realspeak? Simply that like any other ‘overnight success’, it has actually taken years to build up the gardens here. To be perfectly honest, the work will continue for a long time yet.
The best gardens are not imposed on the landscape but instead grow in harmony with their surroundings. Most professional landscapers actually recommend that new home owners wait a year to landscape. Why? It takes at least a year to get a feel for the light and natural traffic patterns in a new yard.
And then of course there is the teeny little detail that new plants are always a lot more work. More work to install. More frequent watering. And normally more work to put new plants to bed for the winter. Unless one has staff to call upon, success will depend solely on the amount of time one personally has available on a daily basis, eh?
And just to really throw a wrench in the works, within every general garden zone area there are tiny little pockets that have their own ecosystem. For instance, a yard that is wide open to the North East winds of winter will not necessarily be able to grow all the plants hardy for that zone. A lot of time … and money … can be saved by learning the ins and outs of your own little eco system gradually … one year at a time 🙂
