The Home Herb Garden

If you have been thinking about growing your own herb garden and wondered where to start, then you may want to think about growing dill. If you don’t know how to grow your own dill, it is actually quite simple. You can purchase a transplant at a garden center if you would like, but it is simple to grow from seeds. Unlike some other plants, you don’t have to worry about starting them indoors and then planting after they have grown you can simply plant the seeds directly in the garden plot where you would like them to grow.

The first tip on how to grow your own dill is to plant the seeds in cool weather. You can plant a couple of weeks before the last hard frost of the year. If you want to have a continual harvest later on, you should continue to plant every ten days from mid spring to early summer. If you decide to plant in containers, they need to be deep because the roots are long. The plants also can grow to be about three feet tall, so that should be taken into consideration when choosing your location.

Additional tips on how to grow your own dill include knowing where and how to plant this herb. Like the majority of herbs, dill also prefers sunlight but can handle some afternoon shade. Sowing the seeds close together will allow the plants to support each other, since they grow up to 3 feet tall and can easily blow over in a strong wind. Allow the seeds a couple of weeks to germinate, and cover them lightly. It is also important to keep fennel, angelica and caraway in a different location of your herb garden. You should also be aware that caterpillars enjoy dill and can be removed by hand from the plants.

Dill fresh from the garden is wonderful to use, so you can cut it fresh as needed during the growing season. If you don’t keep it cut back, it will begin to go to seed, so keep it cut back until you are ready for seed production to begin. If this provides you with excess dill, you can spread it on a paper towel in a single layer and microwave it for 3 minutes. You can then take the leaves and crumble them and keep them stored in an airtight container. Once you are ready to let the dill go to seed, let the seed heads form and dry and then you can cut them and store them until the next spring when you are ready to plant again.