Culinary Herbs for Short-Season Gardeners

Whether you are a novice or an experienced short-season gardener, you will get maximum benefit from this book if you take the time to read the sections that precede the “Culinary Herb Compendium,” which starts on page 27. Interpreting a Plant Hardiness Zone Map will help you determine which perennial herbs are hardy enough to survive winters in your area. Making the Most of the Short Growing Season is full of practical advice on how to get the growing season for your herbs started early and how to keep it going late, despite the weather. Growing and Caring for Your Herbs is a gardening primer for herb growers, covering indoor and outdoor seeding, soil for seeds and seedlings, watering and thinning, lighting requirements, transplanting indoors and outdoors, hardening off, spring and fall frost dates, preparing for winter, and mulching and wrapping perennials for winter survival. The Culinary Herb Compendium includes more than 50 species, featuring over 100 cultivars. The herbs are arranged alphabetically by their common name. To avoid any confusion, each herb’s botanical name is also included, along with the name of the plant family to which the herb belongs. A square green icon clearly marked “Annual” offsets annuals from perennials. A colored “Coldest Tolerated” zone box appears at the top of each perennial entry. The numbers given in these boxes tie in to the plant hardiness zones shown on the climatic zone map on page 6, as do the colors of the actual boxes. The boxes enable you to see instantly the coldest zone in which the herb may be expected to overwinter outdoors successfully.