Mint is a commonly grown herb in container gardens…

…but do you know the health benefits of this herb?

Well today, I’ll share some with you some ways that I use it and other ways that it can be used.

Common uses for mint

Soothes aches, pains and stomach problems
You can easily make mint tea by steeping mint leaves in hot water for a few minutes. This has been known to help with:

• Digestion
• Hiccups
• Farting
• Menstrual cramps
• Constricted muscles
• Other minor aches and pains

Antiseptic and antibacterial
“Mint possesses astringent, antiseptic, antibacterial, and antimicrobial properties,” said the Marketing Manager for an online herb company. “Peppermint is great for cleaning abrasions, cuts, burns and wounds. It’s even good for treating acne.- best when steeped with hot water and left to cool, then applied as an external rinse.”

Relieve headaches
If you are suffering from a headache or migraine, you can mash up mint leaves with some oil. Then apply the mixture to where you are feeling the pain.

Decongestant
“It’s also a decongestant and has expectorant and antiviral properties,” said the marketing manager. “Peppermint tea isn’t just a great stress reliever, it’s good for clearing respiratory issues, treating colds and helping to open up nasal and chest passages aided by its mentholated aroma.

I like adding a pouch of it to hot water or to my shower to infuse the steam with peppermint to help me breathe better when sick.”

Growing mint

Mint is an herb that you shouldn’t start from seed, and can easily transplant in your container garden.

When you harvest mint a certain way, you can promote even more growth.

You can get a mint transplant from your local nursery or a cutting from a friend.

Sound off

How do you use mint?

Health Benefits and Reasons to Grow Mint from Urban Organic Gardener

Which herbs should you start from seeds?

You can experiment and find out on your own…

…or you can read the rest of this post and save yourself the hassle.

If you want to save time and energy, continue reading.

Some herbs require too much of your time

There definitely is something fun about starting from seed. You get to take care of the seedling and watch it grow until you finally use. Like a child of yours.

No doubt on that.

But there are some herbs that are too much work and require too much of your precious time to start from seed and you’re better off buying transplants.

This is especially true because we are urban gardening in small spaces like our apartments and in containers. We have to maximize our space.

The herbs that experts say you shouldn’t start from seed

Bay Leaf
“Bay is extremely difficult to germinate because they must be fresh and viable, and must be stratified and kept moist,” said Briscoe White, the owner of an herb company. “That’s one of the reasons bays are in such high demand- they’re hard to find because they’re hard to germinate, have a low germination rate and grow extremely slowly.”

Lavender
“Lavender can be a little tricky because they’re both very slow growing from seed, which can lead to problems with disease or fungus, since the young plants are so susceptible,” said the White. “Lavender also is very finicky with moisture and because of its slow growth can be difficult to keep healthy.”

Flavored Mints
“Many kinds of flavored mints, like chocolate mint or orange mint, can’t be started from seed, only from cuttings,” said Fern from Life on the Balcony. “This is because they’re hybrid varieties that don’t come true to form when grown from seed.”

Rosemary
Rosemary is much like lavender and, “It can be frustrating to grow from seed because there are so many varieties,” said the White. “To ensure that you get a true variety, you’re best to take a cutting and propagate from that, rather than seed.”

“Rosemary is so much easier to start from a cutting or from a plant bought at the nursery,” added Fern.

White Sage
“White Sage is also difficult to germinate as it has a 10-15% germination rate and on top of that, just takes a lot of time to get growing,” said the owner. “The viability is so low, that we end up placing 10-12 seeds per cell to try to get enough plants to sprout.”

Where you can buy these herbs

You can get these herbs from

• Your local nursery

• A cutting from a friend

Sound off

What herbs are you growing or want to start growing?

5 Herbs You’ll Never Want to Start From Seed from Urban Organic Gardener

The project of using a shipping palette to make an herb garden is one that I originally saw on Instructables.

The concept is that you water the top plant and it drains through to the plant below that and then to the plant below that.

I followed the basic steps steps that were laid out there. You are supposed to drill the neck of the bottle through the top part of the bottle below it.

The palette that I had the slats weren’t close enough and the bottles weren’t long enough, so I had to adapt.

Here is what I did and what was used.

Tools and Materials
• Shipping palette
• Soda and juice bottles
• Razor and scissors
• Drill
• Wood screws
• Rocks
• Newspaper

Instructions on how to build the herb garden
• Cut the bottom parts of the bottles off.
• Screw the first bottle into the top slat. Use two screws spaced out evenly to support the weight.
• Crumple up some newspaper and stick in the bottom of the bottle. Put some rocks in the bottom too.
• Line the entire inside of the bottle with newspaper to protect the roots and soil from direct sunlight.
• Trim off any excess newspaper that’s flowing over the top.
• If your bottle doesn’t reach the slat below, then you will have to reinforce it with something sturdy. I used hangers that I bent out of shape and chopsticks.
• Fill the bottles with soil.
• Plant seeds or transplants as necessary.
• Be sure to put something under the bottom bottle to catch the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi4Bazmc6-U

Starting an Herb Garden Using a Shipping Pallet from Urban Organic Gardener

The dill seeds were planted sometime in the beginning of June. To make sure that I continually have dill available to be I did some succession planting of more seeds.

Succession planting is when you plant seeds in a way that you continually have a fresh crop available. Once one crop is harvested, there is another growing right behind it.

This is great for small space gardening. I never did it on my fire escape garden, but am trying it for the first time on my balcony garden.

Initially there were two rows of dill seeds planted. Now there are four seeds that have sprouted. For some reason, it’s the seeds that were planted in the corners. The ones in the middle have yet to sprout.

For this succession planting, two more rows of dill seeds were planted in between the initial two. I’m hoping that this will provide me with plenty of fresh dill throughout the coming months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ1LdsOA_Z0

Succession Dill Seed Planting from Urban Organic Gardener

Most of my planting so far have been of one single herb or veggie in a container. This time I decided to get creative with a herb container idea – I surrounded calendula with basil, cilantro, parsley, and oregano.

I know that’s pretty crazy. It’s summer time, and I’m feeling frisky. Chopsticks were also reused as row markers to tell what the hell was planted where.

There were four sets of calendula seeds that were planted in the center of the container. To the top of basil about five sets of basil seeds were planted. To the left cilantro seeds were planted in about three rows. Parsley seeds were scattered along the bottom and oregano along the right side.

One of the top five gardening mistakes that I made last year was planting too many herbs together.
This is the first time that I’ve mixed up different kinds of seeds in s container like this.

That was in much smaller containers, so I’m hoping that the bigger self-watering container will allow the herbs to grow together. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3BjT_1OZqc

Creative Herb Garden Container Idea from Urban Organic Gardener

Since I’m still new to this gardening thing, I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my first year. I’ve also had many successes as well, with the most memorable being my first lettuce harvest.

For this post, I’d like to share the Top Five Gardening Mistakes that I’ve Made. Life ain’t perfect and neither are my gardens. I know hard to believe.

I’ve made these mistakes, learned from them and have become better at gardening (and life) because of it.

1. Putting too many food scraps in the compost bin. This was one of my first mistakes and happened before I even planted my garden. Luckily, it wasn’t a tell-tale sign of things to come and easily rectified. Though the smell in my apartment was absolutely horrendous for a few days.
2. Upside down herb gardening. When I first started this, it seemed like a great idea and looked cool as hell too. The first time around, they all died in less than a month. So I tried again with the same results – dead herbs. Then I realized I should turn grow the herbs out of the top, not the bottom…duh.
3. Planting cherry tomatoes on my fire escape. It was great that I was able to get fresh, ripe tomatoes from my fire escape, but the plant grew to be way too large for my fire escape. I definitely won’t grow it again in such a small space.
4. Plant fewer or single plants in each container. The celery plant that grew alone in a container was more than double the size of the ones that were packed together. Also I had combined herbs into containers, which stunted the growth of some of them. It was just a case of me being greedy and trying to plant as much as I could.
5. Worm composting. I went through not one, not two, but three sets of worms that I killed. What can I say? I’m a worm serial killer. They were literally dying to get away from me. It was a major fail.

These are only five of the mistakes that I’ve made while gardening this first time around. There were plenty more and there will be plenty more to come. None of which will stop me from continuing to garden.

What are some gardening mistakes that you’ve made?

Five Gardening Mistakes I’ve Made from Urban Organic Gardener

Is there a saying that a plant takes after it’s owner? Well if not, I think someone should start that saying because my basil plant definitely takes after me.

The basil plant, much like myself, has severely wilted and not sure if it’s going to be spring back to life. I’m thinking that I should’ve put the miniature greenhouse on it sooner.

I’m not totally giving up on because my pepper plants already proved me wrong when I talked smack on them.

Let me focus on the positive of the basil plant – I was at least able to harvest it once and get a meal.

Now I’ll have to wait and see if it will spring back to life. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awn3Efd7Bz8

Basil Is Not A Cold Weather Herb from Urban Organic Gardener

I learned a good lesson about planting herbs together in the same container. It’s not best to do so. Similar to planting celery in the same container – nothing horrible will happen, but the herbs won’t grow as well.

When I first planted them in my backyard vegetable garden in Brooklyn, the herbs were planted two to a container.

It just happened to work out that my grandmother had just enough containers to accommodate that, and I didn’t want to buy any more.

So they were planted based on what I thought tasted well together. Made perfect sense to me. Rosemary and thyme, chocolate and spearmint and so on.

The thyme totally dominated the container and the rosemary barely grew. While both of the mints grew, they got entangled and didn’t last too long.

I definitely think that the herbs would’ve done much better if they were planted in their own containers.

Another lesson learned and no one or thing was harmed.

What’s your experience with planting herbs together?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie2A1rkvkdo

What I Learned About Planting Herbs Together from Urban Organic Gardener