For the best flavors, plant fall herbs now | Home/Garden

Louisiana gardeners can successfully grow a wide variety of culinary herbs, and now is a great time to plant many of the hardy herbs we love to cook with.

Hardy herbs establish reliably when planted during the mild weather we have this time of the year.

Winter cold will not hurt hardy herbs, and they grow and can be harvested all winter into the spring. Fall-planted hardy herbs are far more productive when compared with planting them in the spring.

Understanding the seasons

For growing purposes in Louisiana, we can group herbs into cool-season annuals, warm-season annuals and perennials.

Annuals live for one season and then die.

Cool-season annual herbs are grown from October to May, and warm-season annual herbs are grown from April to November/December. Perennial herbs live for several to many years.

This time of the year, we are planting cool-season annual herbs and hardy perennial herbs.

When selecting which herbs you want to grow in your garden, consider what you commonly cook with. Look at which dried herbs are in your kitchen cabinet and start off growing those types of herbs.

Cool-season annuals 

Herbs we grow as cool-season annuals include parsley, cilantro/coriander, celery, dill, chicory, fennel, borage, arugula and chervil.

Cool-season annual herbs can be grown from seeds or transplants. If you are an experienced seed grower, seeds of all the these herbs can be planted now. Planting a package of seeds will produce lots of plants — generally far more than you can actually harvest and use.

Because we generally only need a few plants of any particular herb to satisfy our culinary needs, gardeners often purchase transplants. Transplants provide faster harvest and are less trouble than starting herbs from seeds, so using transplants is the best way for most gardeners to plant their herbs.

Transplants should be planted from October through March. Although I recommend fall planting, you can expect to get a decent harvest when cool-season annual herbs transplants are planted as late as March (plant the largest transplants you can find). Still, fall planting will far and away produce the largest and longest harvest.

We grow several short-lived perennial herbs here as cool-season annuals because they are not heat tolerant. They include French tarragon, feverfew and chamomile. Like true annuals, they only last one season in the garden before dying.

Transplants are planted in the fall, grow vigorously over the winter and produce harvests into spring. As the weather gets hot, they typically lose vigor and die in early to midsummer.

You may still see basil, a warm-season annual, available in nurseries. Basil hates cold weather, and this is late to be planting it. Put into containers now, you may keep it going longer by moving it inside on those nights it will freeze, and then back out during milder weather.

Perennial herbs 

Some of the perennial herbs that do well here and can be planted now are mints, lemon balm, rosemary, burnet, sorrel, garlic chives, oregano, thyme, sage, lavender, monarda, catnip, anise hyssop, mountain mint, French bay, pineapple sage and rue.

A few perennial herbs that like the heat and would rather be planted in spring include Mexican tarragon, lemon verbena, lemon grass and society garlic.

Hardy perennial herbs are best planted from October through April using transplants available at local nurseries. Fall planting is particularly advantageous as it allows these herbs to establish during the less stressful cool season. With proper care, perennial herbs should stay productive for several to many years.

A few perennial herbs are especially sensitive to heat and are really best planted in the fall (planting in spring doesn’t work as well because the coming summer heat limits production). Thyme, sage, catnip and lavender fall into this category.

Although they generally thrive in the garden during the cool season (October to early May), they struggle during our hot humid summers. By planting in fall, these herbs will be better established and more likely to make it through the summer than when they are planted in the spring.

Know before you plant

Most herbs require direct sun at least four to six hours a day and excellent drainage. Raised beds are a good idea for many herbs because of our abundant yearly rainfall. When preparing the bed, enrich it generously with organic matter.

Herbs should be fertilized moderately to avoid stimulating lush growth that will be less flavorful. Generally, fertilize herbs with the same products you use for your other plants, but at about half the amount.

Locate your culinary herb growing area as close to the kitchen as possible so they are convenient to use while you are cooking. If you must walk all the way across the yard to harvest them, they’ll likely be underutilized, and the herbs will become overgrown and wasted.

Herbs grow very well in containers. As an alternative to an in-ground garden near your kitchen, you can locate pots of herbs on a sunny back porch, deck or patio to be convenient. And since you don’t generally need more than one to a few plants of each type of herb, a nice container herb garden does not have to include a huge number of pots.

Don’t wait for spring to start a new herb garden or add to an existing one — plant hardy herbs now. When fellow gardeners are purchasing and planting herbs next spring, you will be enjoying bountiful harvests from well established, vigorously growing plants.