It’s a nice time of year right now (Autumn) to do some maintenance jobs around the herb garden.
Hopefully you’ve gotten enough oregano to dry to last you through the winter, now it’s time to clean up your patch and snip off those last few flower heads and the woody stems that have appeared.
Rake the oregano with your fingers to make sure you got all the long bits and using your hands again, circle round your mound to get the stems reaching out. This leaves you with a lovely neat mound ready to relax during winter.
Your Southernwood may look a bit misshapen and scraggly but if you can stand it wait until spring before you give it a trim. It seems wrong but it’s best to trim and shape Southernwood just when it starts growing again; it will really fill out and give you a lush bush for it.
Salvia officinallis (common sage) can have a wee cut back so it doesn’t become to leggy and woody. Good time to take hardwood cuttings if you fancy.
Leave your thymes, though peg down branches if you want to make more plants. By October they should have wee roots. Cut the branch off the mother plant, gently dig up and pot up until it looks strong enough to handle the big wide world of your garden without its mother.
If you have Santolina give it a wee shape up to stop it getting leggy.
Snip your rue (Ruta graveolens)flowers off, and give it a shape up. Consider putting the seed heads in floral arrangements and your trimmings in your pets bed as a flea repellent..
If you live in a frosty area think about what you’re going to do with your Lemongrass. Take divisions/pot up and bring inside/or raise it up and have protection plans in place. Go here to learn about dividing your lemongrass.
In the above photo you can see Lemon verbena still in full leaf and flower. That’ll be getting harvested and dried before any frosts get to it (we’ve already had a couple here in Eketahuna). On the other side is a lemon balm that needs a serious trim back like what we did with the oregano, above that is Texas tarragon giving me lovely bright blooms.
I like to plant my garlic early-ish, so whilst the moon is in it’s last quarter I’m planting my cloves now.
That’s a general round up of what I’ve been doing and will be doing, what else… umm, dividing up my clumps of chives, cutting the hops down to ground level (and the scarlet runners), tidy up Rosemary (and dry) oh, I have echinacea roots to harvest this year too (best harvested in their second year, this will be their third, oops) and admire my salvias putting on their Autumn show…
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