Herb Culture

Overview

Half of the Herb Culture course from Warnborough College deals with general herb culture, including identification, soils, mulching, feeding, watering, propagation, pest & disease control, harvest, storage, processing, companion planting, nursery management and herb farming.

The remainder of the course involves detailed studies of major groups of herbs such as: mints, thymes, lavenders, scented geraniums, garlic, roses, artemisias and parsley.

Course aims

• Distinguish, using illustrations and minimum but adequate comments; between major plant families which herbs belong to.

• Compile a resource file of fifty different sources of information regarding cultivated herbs.

• Prepare an herbarium collection of one hundred different herb varieties.

• Develop guidelines for the general culture of herbs in your locality.

• Explain six different propagation methods suitable for herbs, using illustrations.

• Demonstrate how to prepare cuttings for three different herb varieties.

• Propagate three different varieties of commercially farmed herbs, using appropriate, but different propagation techniques for each.

• Explain natural pest and disease control methods for a specified herb species.

• Explain the concept of companion planting, including three examples of proven companion planting interrelationships.

• Write a maintenance schedule for either a herb garden, nursery or farm.

• Describe two different harvesting techniques for herbs, by outlining the steps to follow for each.

• Determine criteria which are critical to success in the process of drying herbs.

• Compare two different drying processes for herbs, with reference to: equipment used, procedure, cost.

• Produce two marketable herb products by harvesting, and processing material from a herb plant.