If you already have a flower or vegetable garden, then you might think that adding herbs to it will be a cinch. After all, you already have the soil, the space, and the means and the tendency to regularly water your plants. However, if you’re thinking about growing herbs with other plants you might want to slightly rethink your plans.

Many popular herbs, including such favorites as dill, bay, rosemary, sage, marjoram, thyme, and oregano are native to the Mediterranean Basin. The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by poor quality, rocky, alkaline, quick-draining soil, by arid conditions, and by sun. To put your Mediterranean herbs in rich, loamy soil with plenty of moisture and a mixture of sun and shade is therefore to take them right out of their element, and it might even kill them.

It’s no wonder that many gardeners get frustrated with trying to grow herbs. If you want to grow these types of herbs, for best results they really need to be grown on their own in a separate garden bed rather than with your other flowers or vegetables. You can prepare the garden bed like this:

1. First choose the area where you’ll plant your Mediterranean herb bed. It should be as exposed and sunny as possible, but proximity to a wall (to absorb sunlight and radiate it at night) is also a plus.

2. Start preparing the area by mowing any grass as short as possible. Then lay down layers of wet newspaper on top of it to thoroughly kill it off.

3. Now layer crushed limestone rock over the wet newspaper. This provides the rocky, alkaline conditions that mimic the terrain of the Mediterranean Basin. The rock layer should be around 4-6 inches thick.

4. Now simply plant your herbs directly into the crushed limestone. No soil or fertilizer is required.

And you’re done! It might seem strange to ‘plant’ your herbs into rock rather than soil, but what you’re doing here is mimicking the conditions that these plants evolved to suit. An added bonus is that herbs grown under these conditions seem to develop more intense aromas and flavors than those grown in rich soil and less harsh conditions.

Don’t forget that herbs from the Mediterranean Basin are ‘xeric,’ meaning adapted to a very dry habitat. This means that you don’t need to give them any additional water once they are established.

One more thing: the more rock, brick and stone features around and near your Mediterranean herb gardens (things like stone paths and low stone walls) the better, as they will absorb the sun’s heat during the day and release it at night, effectively giving you a microclimate in the area that they’re in. This allows the plants to survive in conditions which would ordinarily be too cold for them.

Arthur McLay is a herb grower enthusiast and author of the book “The Secrets of Herb Growing”. To learn more about growing herbs with other plants visit www.herbgrowingcenter.com
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