If you love to cook, you’ll probably want to start you own culinary herb garden. Many people keep these somewhere near their back door so that they can dash outside for a couple of sprigs while they’re cooking.

Pull down a few of your favorite cookbooks and read through the ingredient lists when you get ready to plant your culinary herb garden.

Here are some awesome herbs for your kitchen garden:

• Chives: I love raising and cooking chives because they are so simple. From seed to cooking pot, these are easy all the way around. If you do have a recipe that calls for fresh chives, just chop the tops off a few of your sprouts and the plant will continue to grow It is awesome for making special dinners or sprinkling on your baked potatoes.

• Dill: Anyone can cultivate dill—you don’t even need a green thumb. Your dill herb is a self-sower, so if you’re providing the full-sun and well-drained soil it loves and you do not want more and more dill plants, snip off the blossoms before they go to seed. The leaves, stems, and seeds are all good to eat. The dill plant also tastes wonderful in your tuna salad or chicken salad.

• Cayenne Pepper: Because this sizzling hot plant will grow to more than 3 feet high, you’ll want to plant it so that it doesn’t block the sun for another plant. If you live in a climate that has frost during winter months, you’ll want to bring your cayenne pepper plant inside. When starting out with cayenne pepper, you don’t have to buy it, you can begin with seeds indoors and then plant the young pepper plant outside. As your plant grows and begins to bear its fruit, keep an eye on it so that you don’t let it over-ripen.

• Tarragon: I love the great taste of tarragon. Adding just a little to your chicken salad or a mayonnaise-based vegetable dip can create a stir among your guests, and even in your own mouth. Start with a young plant and snip leaves and stems whenever you need them. You’ll also want to keep the herb trimmed back, so if you need to give it a manicure and do not have anything on the menu that calls for tarragon; you can also freeze it for the future.

• Cilantro: This star of Mexican cuisine can add a bunch of flavor to your next salsa, tacos or Mexican chicken dish. You can successfully cultivate cilantro from seeds and harvest leaves in any month of the year, which you can add to your delicious Mexican entrees. You can also take it inside during winter for guaranteed success. The leaves near the bottom of the plant have the best flavor, so begin here when you harvest the leaves for your next Mexican dinner.

• Welch Onions: These small onions are similar to scallions and have a nice, mild taste. Like pearl onions, I use these in meals to add some visual appeal. These onions grow in clumps, so be sure to leave plenty of room in your pot.

Good luck with your herb gardening. Be sure to let me know how your herb garden grows.

Here is more information on Fresh Herb Gardening. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Herb Gardens.

You don’t need a plot of land in order to grow the herbs necessary to cook whatever you want to cook. Herbs are expensive you try to get them at stores, but if you grow them on your own, you will be able to save lots of money. So what do you do when you don’t have land, such as when you live in an apartment? You can grow your own herbs no matter where you live by getting a kitchen herb garden device. These devices sit on your kitchen counter and have a light built in. You just need to water them when needed and a lot of the devices will tell you when it is necessary, and you will then watch your herbs grow big and lush in the comfort of your own home. Unlike a window herb garen, you use artificial light so you get to control every aspect of growing instead of relying on nature to do that.

Devices Vary

When shopping for kitchen herb gardens, you’ll see that there are several variations on the devices available. Some are just pots that have artificial light attached to them. Then there are those that are completely digitized that will tell you when the plants have enough water, when to water them, when they need more light, how to control the lighting such as putting them on a schedule and some will water them automatically so that you don’t need to do a thing. It all depends on how much you want to pay as the more expensive the device is, the less you have to do. However, it may also be based on the effort you want to put into growing your own herbs. If you have a green thumb and want to practice, get a device that will let you do so.

Your Control

The best part about these kitchen home herb garden devices is that you control what the plants get. You don’t have to rely on nature to provide sunlight, or water, or anything else. The kitchen herb garden devices provide artificial light and you can either add the water or the device may already have the ability to do so.

When you start to improve in using your kitchen herb device, you will be able to get a fresh supply of herbs whenever you need them. You won’t have to go to the store to buy them and this will save you a lot of money and you’ll be able to cook like an award winning chef using all the herbs you have from your kitchen garden.

Garden ornaments can turn your yard into a wonderful oasis.  And with a variety of styles — including cast iron, sandstone, stone or concrete — you can find the right design for your space.

If you have the right kind of garden that is begging for garden ornaments, it’s time to take a good look to see what it out there. Perhaps a snazzy antique fountain, a frog mounted on a rock, a sandstone lion or even carved stone sundial.

Ideally what you would want in terms of garden ornaments is something that captures your personality and has a certain quiet elegance to it. Make sure you’ll love having it in your garden for the long term. Garden ornaments are a great way to add an accent to your trees, bushes or flowers; they go with just about everything.

You can’t go wrong with garden ornaments, as they have a unique style of their own and immediately liven up a yard that needed that “little something extra” to bring it to life. If you have children, you will delight in the variety of various garden ornaments that will appeal to a child’s imagination. Animals, like bears and dogs, are good examples. If you have a fun garden with amusing animals, who knows how much fun your child could have?

It’s a good idea when considering what kinds of garden ornaments to put in your yard to avoid plastic. They are not very durable, and are not built to last. Even if they’re less expensive, you end up paying more in the end for replacements. After all, in the decades you could keep a concrete or stone garden ornament, you’ll have to replace your plastic ornaments at least twice or more.

Wooden garden ornaments are also a viable option, for they have a long life if they’re maintained correctly. However, many people prefer having something that they don’t have to keep up every year by staining it or putting a sealer coat on it to divert the elements. It’s a personal choice and all depends on what you are willing to do to maintain your garden ornaments. No matter what you do, you can keep in mind that the longest-lasting and most durable garden ornaments are the stone and concrete kind.

Also check out these antique desks.