Feed your plants.The best way to ensure your herbs will produce lots of tasty leaves for you to enjoy is to treat them to the power combo of terrific soil (which you read about above) and plant food designed for the types of plants you're growing. So a month after planting your garden, begin feeding herbs withMiracle-Gro® Performance Organics® Edibles Plant Nutrition, following the directions on the label. Miracle-Gro® soil and plant food work in tandem to give you a bigger harvest (vs. unfed plants)—and who doesn't want that from their herb garden?
Harvest wisely.Pick herbs often to keep new growth coming. When you harvest leaves on herbs that grow in clumps (like chives, lemongrass, cilantro, or parsley), pick outer leaves first, working your way toward the center of the plant. For herbs that have an upright stem with a growing point, like mint, stevia, basil, or oregano, snip individual branches. You may also want to pinch off the growing tips, which will cause the plant to produce more branches and become bushier, which means you'll have more leaves to harvest.
Keep an eye out for flowers.Edible herbs have edible flowers. With many herbs, though, such as basil, mint, and stevia, leaf flavor begins to change (usually for the worse) once those flowers begin to form, so remove blossoms as soon as you see them. Other herbs, like chives and pineapple sage, flower throughout the growing season and make wonderful salad toppers.
