Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Herb stand

During the Winter I made a herb stand from bits of wood left over from another project. The herbs had been clustered in pots in a corner of the patio but I thought something more functional right by the house would be a good idea. 

When I looked at flower stands for sale they frequently had what I considered was a fundamental design fault. This was that the shelving overlapped one another too much. The problem with this is that when you water the plants the surplus water will drip onto the plants below. This is especially problematic for herbs, at least of Mediterranean origin (that is most of the ones we use), as they do not like being over watered or having their leaves splashed. Making my own stand for herbs avoided this issue. 

The herbs we use most are fairly bog standard but using fresh herbs where you can does make a difference in the kitchen. In the picture there is sage (including a fancy tricolor variety), thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary and lemon verbena. The latter is used to add extra lemon flavour cakes. 

Even if not used for cooking, rubbing your fingers along them to capture their scent is satisfying enough in itself. Lemon verbena is my favourite for this.






6 comments:

  1. Mmmmm Lemon Verbena, it's been a long time since I had a plant of that - only for the fragrance- never used it for cooking.
    I like your herb stand - it looks really good and I especially like the shape of those small pots on the top shelf.

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    1. I found them going cheap somewhere, but they do look good.

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  2. Your herbs look wonderfully healthy on that stand. My garden is overrun with lemon verbena. It's excellent ground cover! I just pull it up to make clear patches for oher plants.

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    1. I think you mean lemon balm which is rather vigorous. Lemon verbena is more elegant herb, a little on the tender side so you can lose it in a hard winter.

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  3. That is an excellent stand and looks great with all those healthy herbs in pots on it.

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