How to Keep Potted Herbs Healthy and Thriving

How to Keep Potted Herbs Healthy and Thriving

Would you like to create a herb garden on your patio or balcony? Finding planters is a crucial component of the process. Additionally crucial is the container's contents, even if appearance is first. This is especially crucial if you are growing herbs for the kitchen since some elements might compromise the health of your plant. Regarding containers, metal seems particularly difficult to grasp. Many gardeners worry that as the planter rusts or corrodes, pollutants will seep into the ground and absorb by their plant roots. The good news is that, even if the risk is hypothetical, there is a simple approach to be safe. Keep your herbs in their plastic nursery pots or larger plastic pots for now; then, place them in their metal home.

New cattle troughs are increasingly being used as raised gardens, and more and more commercially produced raised beds are constructed of metal. Though they could also be constructed of aluminum or stainless steel, most of the time these are galvanized steel. Dangerous items include metal roofing sheets, rusty cans used to hold nails, old metal buckets, and workman's lunch or fishing tackle boxes turned into building components. Their age, type of metal used, or what chemicals are included into the coatings and finishes on their surface are not always obvious. Actually, the most of these pots are suitable for use in the garden. Herbs become unhealthy when they start to rust; if you eat homegrown plants, they could even cause you illness.

Are old containers really detrimental for your herbs?

Rust is naturally occurring iron oxide. Although iron is a vital mineral for plants, high concentrations of iron oxide could prevent them from synthesizing chlorophyll and absorbing nutrients. Iron toxicity is not common in plants since iron oxide does not dissolve in water and hence plant tissues cannot readily absorb it. Furthermore, a rusting container releases such a tiny quantity of iron oxide in a typical garden that it most likely has no effect at all. There evidence, at least going back to the 1960s, that iron oxide might make herbs healthier. Remember, though, that the iron oxide nanoparticles used in recent research differ from the iron oxide flaking off your rusty patio planter.

The only things likely to rust are iron and raw steel products. Copper and aluminum rust; zinc rucks. (mostly of course) only stainless steel does not rust. If your raised bed is metal, other leached chemicals could be more harmful than rust. Old and vintage metal containers as well as modern planters imported from overseas and purchased online contain heavy metals including lead. One way germs could enter is even from the paint on metal containers. Often used to create raised garden planters, galvanized steel is treated with zinc and occasionally aluminum. How much zinc and other dangerous toxins, including cadmium, seep from these containers and into the ground has not been much studied. Acidic soil and water can hasten the breakdown of the zinc coating; but, unlike iron oxide, the very tiny amount that leaks out is probably rather negligible. One should not give food-safe galvanized steel much thought.

Use plastic containers to maintain herbs' freshness.

This does not mean you cannot come up with imaginative uses for metal containers in your garden—even for edible plants. Instead turn your metal box into a cachepot. One can create a wall separating the metal from the ground easily. Start by setting your herbs in individual pots. Heavy plastic or resin planters are ideal. A mixed 15-pack of 4, 6, and 8-inch RooTrimmer Thickened Green Plastic Nursery Pots with Drainage Holes runs just $23. This allows you plenty of choices for how you arrange your raised bed's plants.

Paint the metal with Rust-Oleum paint, rust inhibitor, or clear enamel and scrub the surface with a paste created of lemon juice and salt before placing the herbs in their plastic pots on the raised metal bed. After setting the herb pots on top, fill in any voids with broken terracotta, wet sand or gravel, polystyrene bits, bubble wrap, or waterproof foam to keep the plants from overheating and to cover the metal. Just be sure not to block any holes allowing water flow.

Moreover, if you arrange round planters inside your metal raised beds, you'll use roughly half as much soil. If you still worry about the metal container becoming overly hot, you can add extra insulating materials and a plastic planter barrier. Choose easily grown herbs that will flourish all summer and withstand heat. Furthermore, thoroughly clean your herbs to eliminate any dirt before you apply them in cooking.