Culinary Herbs to Grow in the Garden

Update: Herbs are an essential part of life. They provide medical comfort, enhance the food we eat, and play important roles in the ecosystems of our gardens. 

Visit our developing garden blog on the justaz.com website for images and info on growing veggies and herbs. (2025)

Fresh or dried, herbs add flavor and depth to almost any dish. But purchasing fresh herbs at the supermarket can get expensive. If you grow your own herbs, whether in a large garden or in a few small pots, you'll not only save money, you'll impress your family and friends with your culinary genius.

Rosemary Shrub

Rosemary
A hardy perennial native to the Mediterranean, the rosemary plant now grow almost worldwide. In temperate climates, such as the southwest United States, a rosemary plant may live as long as 15 years in an outdoor garden.

Rosemary has an earthy, pungent aroma that complements beef and chicken, and just a little is needed to add depth to roasted vegetables. 

Sage Plant

Sage
Sage has an earthy aroma that reminds you of Thanksgiving dinners and hot pork roast sandwiches. A perennial herb, sage produces for up to three years before its leaves start to lose that rich, pungent flavor. Use fresh if you want a strong, savory taste but use sparingly, as fresh sage can overpower other flavors in the dish. 

When drying this herb, leave the leaves whole. Rub the dried leaves between your fingertips when you add this herb to your dishes for controlled, subtle taste.

Oregano Plant

Oregano
The word oregano means, "Joy of the mountain" in Greek; it grows wild and in abundance in that Mediterranean country. This earthy herb has a strong, sharp flavor to it that balances well with sweet tomato sauces, is essential to Mexican cooking, and adds a rich flavor to eggs and sausages. 

Thyme

Common thyme grows well under a wide range of conditions, making it a kitchen garden favorite. Use thyme in sauces, marinades, and in soups, and pair it with chicken, fish or roasted vegetables.

Thyme Plant

If you want to eliminate table salt from your cooking, replace it with thyme. This herb brings out the natural flavors of food, enhancing any dish in much the same way as salt does, only without the negative health effects. 

Basil
No garden is complete without basil. Try adding a variety of basil plants such as spicy globe, purple ruffle, Thai basil and of course, sweet basil. Use spicy globe in Mexican dishes, and purple ruffle or Thai in stir-fry.

Basil Plant

Sweet basil is an essential ingredient in many Italian dishes. And nothing tastes fresher on a summer's day than sliced tomatoes topped with thin slices of mozzarella cheese and sprinkled with ribbons of bright green basil.

Parsley
An annual herb, parsley does more than garnish your plate for presentation. It has a savory undertone to it that adds depth and interest to soups and stews when stirred in at the last moments of cooking.

Parsley Plant

Parsley grows best in the cool weather, and though it doesn't have a long growth period, two or three plants may provide you with enough parsley for drying to last you to the next growing season. Use this dried herb with dried basil, oregano and thyme for an herbal seasoning mix perfect for meatballs or Italian meatloaf. 

Mint
Mint has an unmistakable scent to it: sharp, crisp, fresh. Used in an array of foods, from meat to vegetables to candy and cocktails, mint is an abundant producer. One plant in your garden is likely to suffice simply because it continues to spread. Consider growing mint in a container to control its prolific growth habit.

Mint Plant

Herbs add finesse to your dishes, and though your family and friends may not say, "Oh, I taste the oregano in this enchilada sauce," that's okay. What you want them to say is, "These are the best enchiladas I've ever had."

The contents of this blog, including images, are copyrighted to justaz.com productions.  2014

The Summer Winter Garden

Update: The garden has been renovated and looks very different now, in October of 2025.  You can see the changes in this video and learn more about growing potatoes. (2025)

How to Use Potato Grow Bags from HomyHoo: A product demonstration

In the last couple of weeks or so, it has rained quite a bit, about four inches. Here in the valley of the sun, that's a considerable amount. We have dust storms, windstorms, thunderstorms.

These are the monsoons. Monsoon season is upon us.

Right now, we are caught in this pseudo season, a mixture of high temperatures and high humidity, followed by brief but intense storms of various sort. The monsoons come during the last few agonizing weeks of summer, a time of burning sunlight and thickened air, and of indoor activities.

Devil Grass

No one I know keeps a full garden in the summertime. The weather is either too hot or it's raining buckets. You keep your hardy perennials alive, such as rosemary, but you would have harvested your veggies weeks ago. This is our version of wintering over.

And some of the photos here are the equivalent of those images of the beds in gardens west of the Rockies in the last cold days of winter, the soil still half frozen. Here, though, in the valley of the sun, after four inches of rain and brutally high temperatures, I have Devil Grass.

Tomatillo and Cayenne in a barrel

Devil grass is Bermuda grass and it can't be killed, merely subdued. It does not give in easily though, and I may have to, am likely to, resort to chemical warfare. I could pull the grass by hand from the nooks and crannies of my garden, but that doesn't really subdue the green devil as much as it encourages it to try harder. So, chemical warfare it is.

Looking at What's Alive

Early in the year, I scattered seeds around the garden in a free form fashion. The result was a wild hodgepodge of seedlings popping up, and more than half of the

seedlings did mature to yield a fair amount of veggies. The tomatoes did especially well.

Now in the miserable heat and pounding rains grow tomatillos and peppers, both sweet and hot. And one arugula plant. The herbs are doing well, but there's a lot of empty space in the beds.

Empty space

Soon, though, the hot weather will abate, and Phoenix gardeners can

leave the confines of their air-conditioned homes and feel the funky Phoenix soil in their fingers once again.

Thinking about a Remodel

Garden beds are my preferred method when soil gardening, but the low beds do present some issues. The reason the Devil Grass is so prolific is that the beds are watered nearly every day. The water feeds the grass roots, and the walkways fill up with the stuff. As I say, it needs subduing.

Puppy with peppers in a barrel

The second issue is my back. I have what is clinically referred to as a bad back. Every year, it gets a little harder to kneel down and get back up. So, we may be raising the beds.

We also have to consider how to provide shade for the garden in the late spring and throughout the summer months. Those beds with perennials or heat tolerant plants need protection. We need to find an efficient way to add shade when needed and store the material away when it's not.

Starting Seeds

Hardy oregano

Come the first of September, I'll start seeds for the soil garden. It will be a fall garden, but here a fall garden is tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, squashes, carrots, and all manner of greens and herbs.

While gardeners in other parts of the world put their gardens to bed, and spend winters in front of a cozy fire reading seed catalogues, I'll be gardening.

And when summer comes around again, and the others are reaping the rewards of what they have sown, I'll be in front of the air conditioning vent, reading seed catalogues.

Time to Be Outside

You can watch our video of how to safely use a chimenea in your garden or back yard:

How to Set Up, Season and Use a Clay Chimenea 

It's nearly Halloween, and in other parts of the country, that means cooler days and even cooler nights. The temperatures drop down and before long, there'll be snow on the ground. The residents in these northern and eastern regions are thinking about preparing their gardens and yards for the cold weather, and putting up the garden harvests- canning, freezing, drying and otherwise preserving for the gardenless days ahead.

Here in the Valley of the Sun, we're emerging from the long hot summer. We've planted our veggies and are planting still more. We're seeding our dying Bermuda grass lawns with rye seed, and we'll have green grass in the winter months. We're spending more time outdoors in the warm afternoons, the cool evenings, and the chilly mornings.

One of the things people like to do here in the fall and winter months is spend time around a firepit or outdoor fireplace. While not all of us have well-appointed outdoor living spaces, we may have little bits of space in our backyards where we can sit beneath the moon and gaze into the flames dancing inside our little chimeneas.

We put a lot of work into our gardens, into our veggie gardens, flower gardens and into our landscaping. On these cool nights, when the work is done and the constellations loom high, we should remember why we do this, and step outside, snuggle up together and let the flames lull us into a dream.

Bob and I spend a lot of time working; we both have day jobs and when we're not working, we're working on producing more videos, focused on the DIY lifestyle. I spend my free time writing, and gardening, and writing about gardening.

We're like a million other people, working, working, working. This post is about taking a break. So take a break tonight. Take a break and spend some time watching the flames. Dream a while. It's good for you, and your garden will be all the more beautiful for it.

Making a Tire Garden

You can watch the video of how we set up the tire garden on YouTube:

How to Make a Tire Garden for Growing Lettuce and Herbs

One thing about gardens is they are great for experimenting. You can try different plant companion combinations, different soil mixes, different containers and methods.

In the last few months, I've departed from the 'rules' of gardening and engaged in free style planting- planting seeds with no thought to placement, season or symbiotic relationships. I'm also disregarding my drip system and spraying the garden beds with a watering wand, soaking the soil and sometimes the young seedlings.

Okra plants in October

So, in the spirit of rebellion, I shrugged off the cautionary tales of tire gardening and embraced the concept of re-using a usually cast-off product. The studies I've read concern themselves with shredded tires for ground cover, that the heavy metals leech into the soil. Well, once the integrity of the tire is destroyed, as in shredded, then yes, leeching is likely imminent.

But even the Environmental Protection Agency says intact tires are fine for garden containers, so Bob and I set one up. Now, we'll see what happens next.

Free Style Gardening Successes

Zucchini with Flower

As of this writing, I've harvested okra and zucchini, Anaheim peppers and jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, herbs and even a few beans. My free style garden is moving along rather well, and if the fall season brings forth its customary good weather here in the valley of the sun, I should have a good harvest.

The success of a garden is measured by its harvest, and in the last couple of seasons, my success has been limited. But I have more hope for this season, and I think our tire garden will add to that success.

Updating Our Aquaponics and Hydroponics

We're in the process of preparing for the upgrade to our aquaponics system. We'll add a larger fish tank and an extra grow bed, as well as reposition the grow beds. It's a long process, but now that the temperatures no longer rise above the 100 degree mark, we can move along at a quicker pace.

We're also looking at updating our approach to hydroponics. We have, traditionally, used buckets and plastic containers for our hydroponics systems, but the systems aren't particularly attractive. If you want hydroponics at your front entrance, for example, a big orange bucket won't cut it. So keep a look out for some of our upcoming experiments in updating the look of hydroponics and of course, for our new aquaponics system.

A Landscape Plan for the Backyard

Update: This plan evolved quite a bit, and through various events we are now re-landscaping. We are, yet again, making a plan.

October, 2025

Plan with the wish list added

Original Post: We had to have a new sewer line installed in our backyard and though it was financially devastating, it does allow us an opportunity to landscape the yard. 

Now, landscaping is just about always an expensive venture, and we are, of course, broke. So how do we take our backyard from a chaotic and cluttered space to an appealing outdoor oasis on a near zero budget? Well, I'm not sure yet.

I do know that having a plan is essential, for both the project and the budget. So since I don't have any money, I'll start with a wish list plan for the project.

The first step, then, was to create a drawing of the space, complete with measurements. 

My husband and son tackled that task, and the drawing gives us a foundation for what we can -and can't do- in the space.

I scanned the drawing into my imaging program, and added what I want in the new landscape. That's depicted in red.

We would like a covered patio and a work space for Bob for cutting wood and doing building type things. We would like a grassy area and a small rock garden on the west side of the house.

Future Site of Bob's Workspace

We can't extend the roof over the patio, because that costs about a bajillion dollars. So we're opting for shade sails, and we'll make a video showing you how to install those.

For the work space, we'll pour a smaller concrete slab next to the shed, using the tree to the south side for shade. We'll add a frame work of sorts to create a drop shade facing west. This gives Bob a space to work in without having to stand in the heat of the sun. We'll share video on that part of the project as well.

We'll cultivate a lawn in the area directly behind the house, and create a grassy area, using rye grass in the winter and Bermuda grass in the summer. The lawn is smaller, and won't require much water, an important consideration here in the desert.



The Mess on the West Side

A rock garden in the small area on the west side seems a viable solution, and for now, that's the plan. But the large evergreen there drops needles by the pound, and keeping the garden tidy may be a problem.

Shifting to the east side, we have a strip of land that lies between the sidewalk leading to the shed and the block wall fence. A section of the sidewalk had to be removed when the new sewer line was installed, and we'll have to pour a new section.

Right now, the east strip is a lumpy, rocky pile of nutrient deficient soil. The sunlight is brutal in that space; during the summer it gets about 12 hours of direct sunlight. I don't want flowers, or cacti or succulents or really, any living thing there. So right now, it's just a big question mark.

So that's my basic plan for the backyard. The shade sails provide relief from the sun; the work space keeps the construction zone away from the house; the lawn softens the landscape; and the rock garden to the west means Bob doesn't have to try and mow the lawn back there.

Now I just have to figure out how to pay for all this.

The Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit

Update: The information is the same now as when this was first posted, in February of 2013. The exception is I stated the cost of the kit as about four dollars. The price has changed, so check with your local nursery outlet for current costs. (2025)

You can watch a demonstration video of how to use the Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit on YouTube

How to Use the Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit in Your Garden

Before spring planting, which here in Phoenix is as early as January but no later than the end of February, I add a fresh layer of garden soil to the beds. I like to use the permaculture method, meaning I don't till the soil or turn it over. Rather, after the plants are removed, I just add another layer of soil, so as not to disturb the existing microbial community within the beds.

I also like to test the soil for nutrient value at that time to ensure each bed can support its intended plants.

The Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit is available at home improvement stores and garden centers at a reasonable cost - around $4 a kit. Now, I have seven beds in my garden. So if I test each bed, I can expect to pay around $30 to test the entire garden if I buy the kits separately. Buy in bulk, though, and that cost is reduced.

Why bother testing? Well, if you know what the nutrient content is in your soil, you can better choose which fertilizer to use,or better understand why certain plants aren't thriving.

For example, broccoli needs a lot of nitrogen. If the broccoli leaves look yellowish and the plants aren't producing heads, you can use a test kit to determine if the soil nitrogen level is too low. Add blood meal to the bed and your broccoli hopefully will recover and thrive.

Macro Nutrients
The Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit lets you test for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, all macro nutrients essential for healthy vegetables.

Nitrogen (N) is directed to leafy growth and stem growth. Without sufficient nitrogen, the plant is unable to properly develop its 'vascular system', the means by which nutrients are transported throughout the plant.

Phosphorous (P) is essential to the process of setting fruit. Without phosphorous, the plant struggles to develop a strong root system and is unlikely to flower. If a plant doesn't flower, it doesn't produce fruit or develop seeds for propagation.

Potassium (K) helps plants resist disease and is akin to a multi-vitamin; it promotes general overall health in the plant.

My Assessment
I like using the Ferry Morse Soil Test Kit for my garden beds. It's an easy test to use, and each unit costs only about $4 at local outlets, but you can find it online in bulk; you'll get a decent discount buying them that way.

It's an uncomplicated test that doesn't require anything more than a soil sample, water and a bit of your time. Essentially, I use the tests once a year and am satisfied with the product.

Kratky in a Can Update
Unfortunately, the strawberry plant installed in my coffee can Kratky system didn't survive. I don't fault the methodology of the experiment. Rather, the onset of cold weather and the plant's exposure to it likely damaged the roots - the water was a bit frozen the morning after I had forgotten to take the plant inside.

I want to repeat the experiment. A strawberry plant may not have been the ideal subject, either. I'm going to use sweet basil for my next test subject because we've had good luck with basil in other hydroponic methods; the herb is well suited to the watery environs of hydroponics.

Landscaping Projects
Spanish Dagger trees are common here in Phoenix, and you can get some tips on how to trim these long-lived agaves in our video, "How toTrim a Spanish Dagger Tree."

If you have an unwanted cactus in your yard, watch our video, "Removing a Small Cactus from Your Yard". 

And finally, we'll start planning for new landscaping, as the install of a new sewer line presented and opportunity to update the backyard. In an upcoming post, we'll show you what we come up with. 

Disclaimer: Ferry Morse did not supply me with this product. I paid for it myself.