[RosieCotton]

I got more dumb gardening questions for ya...sick of me yet?

When I was out and about this weekend, I bought some packets of herb seeds. Pretty common ones, like dill, parsley, sage, oregano, chives...like that. (No mint, though!) I have a small area I plan to put them - going to dig a rectangular plot about four by six feet or so, maybe a bit smaller than that. My question is...am I nuts to think they'll all grow well in the same conditions? Should I be putting them together like this, or is it a bad idea? And how do you usually divide things up? I was thinking maybe just small sticks with twine, and pull out any naughty plants that venture outside their area.

[Wneighbor]

Okay, I can talk about how all those grow in Texas girl and we can hope it translates to New England. Since we're sort of starting from scratch and I'm guessing that you aren't wanting to start any seed indoors in pots then just divide out your area into even squares and sew seed as instructed on your packets. If you want to divide with twine that will be okay. But, you don't really have too.

I don't know where your area is located but remember you might want taller plants to the back, shorter to the front, if you have a back and front. Dill will get tall. Chives will be short. Parsley is a biennial so it has a 2 year growing cycle. It tastes so good fresh in salads though, nothing like that store stuff or that decorator stuff in restaurants. Sage, oregano and chives are perenials, they'll come back every year. Well, they do in Texas. That oregano might not where you are. Dill reseeds itself well so even though it's an annual, if you let some go to seed it'll come right back up next year.

Sounds like to me you're fixed up.

[Overtaxed]

They should do okay in the same conditions. Are you direct seeding? I usually start my herbs indoors and then transplant them so I go the "naturalized" route and don't divide them with string or anything.