When to plant

[ozbuc]

Ok I am back for my first question. When will it be safe to start a container herb garden here in Long beach CA? The night temps are ranging from mid 40s to mid 50s.
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

[Susan W]

Most of the herbs can handle your temps. Basil can go down to 40, at least after it is growing. You may do better to start some herbs inside, then move the transplants into your container.

Also, what herbs are you looking to grow? Some slow starters may be best to buy starts and plant them in the container.

[ozbuc]

Thanks for the reply. What we are looking to plant are mint, chives, cilantro, culantro and maybe ginger.

[rainbowgardener]

The mint, chives, and cilantro are very cold hardy, even frost tolerant and you could definitely plant them now.

The ginger and culantro are tropicals and tender. If night time temps were staying above 50 that should be OK, but 40 would probably be too cold for them.

[imafan26]

Ginger can be planted in a pot. It does well in 5 gallon buckets. You can plant the rhizomes anytime. They won't sprout until they are ready. Keep the media slightly damp but not waterlogged until they sprout. That usually happens when the days get longer in Spring.

When I plant mine out in the garden, I keep a few rhizomes in a tray of damp sand. That way if some of the ones in the ground rot because of flooding rains, I have back up and of course I can still use the rhizomes for cooking.

[Susan W]

When I thought about your wish list again, figured you may want to re-think! You have 3 -4 very different things going on, and for that need equal number of pots. Do go through the threads (can use search function) for various herbs.

Ginger -you have great advise above.
Cilantro -a cool weather herb, for us spring and fall.
Culantro - clueless!

Mint. There are many mints called spearmint (your common mint). I get starts, and can be from friend or store, for one I like. I have one variety I like from the garden center, but after about 3 yrs starts to revert to something else (mint, but not what I started with!). Do have a separate container for your mint. You will need several plants to have some for your tea, lemonade and adult beverages.

In your situation, would suggest getting starts and getting your herb pots going (and harvesting). Then play with seed starting. With your climate should have starts in the garden centers. The biggest problem is to limit yourself!

[ozbuc]

Thanks again for all the advice. I do intend this first year as a learning and teaching experience. As far as mint goes I used to pick wild mint and other consumable in northern Wisconsin back when I was a hippy. So we will see how all that goes.

[PunkRotten]

Be careful with mint it spreads aggressively. I can vouch that Chives are tough. I had a huge mound that I divided, got like 5 chunks and let the rest of the mound dry out in the sun for like a week. Then I chopped it all up with a shovel and tossed it in the compost. Now today I see a few clumps growing in the compost. I am trying to grow Culantro too but no sprouts yet and it has been a month.