Lemon Balm
Lemon Balm is a pungent, attractive herb that can infuse and uplift your tea or why not add a couple of fresh leaves to garnish desserts and garden salads.
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Délicieux! Tarragon is an essential herb in French cooking, being chopped into the traditional 'fines herbes' blend. This perennial herb can grow up to nearly 1 m tall and goes dormant over winter.
Tarragon is very drought and cold tolerant and can be grown in pots or large tubs.
The best variety for cooking is French Tarragon, which doesn't produce seeds; keep an eye out for seedlings in Garden Centres in mid-spring.
How to grow tarragon in a garden
- Choose a spot in the garden that receives full sun to part shade. Enrich the well drained soil with Yates Thrive Natural Blood & Bone with Seaweed. If the soil is clay based, add gypsum and fork in well.
- Dig the planting hole twice as wide and to the same depth as the root-ball. Remove the shrub from the container, gently tease the roots.
- Position in hole and backfill with soil, gently firming down. Form a raised ring around the plant, creating a well so that water will go where it’s needed most. Water in well.
- Mulch around the base with organic mulch like bark chips, pea or lucerne straw, keeping it away from the trunk.
- Water deeply, twice a week, depending on weather conditions.
- Feed weekly with Yates Thrive Natural Fish Seaweed+ Plant Food Concentrate.
- Harvest by cutting with scissors back to the hard woody stems – this will also help encourage leafier growth.
How to grow tarragon in a pot
- Choose a pot at least 400 mm wide. Position in full sun to part shade and fill with quality potting mix, such as Yates Premium Potting Mix.
- Remove the shrub from the container, gently tease the roots.
- Position in hole and backfill with potting mix, gently firming down. Water in well.
- Mulch around the base with organic mulch like bark chips, pea or lucerne straw, keeping it away from the trunk.
- Once planted, keep the plant well watered, but don’t let the water sit in a saucer at the base of the pot.
- Feed weekly with Yates Thrive Natural Fish Seaweed+ Plant Food Concentrate.
- Harvest by cutting with scissors back to the hard woody stems – this will also help encourage leafier growth.
Growing tips
- Tarragon is drought tolerant, no extra watering is needed once established.
- Try to establish a Tarragon hedge from cuttings and prune regularly to encourage dense growth.
- You can also divide the existing shrub during winter, to get a new portion to plant out.
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Recommended products
Yates Thrive Natural Blood & Bone with Seaweed
A certified organic garden input boosted with NZ Seaweed to gently nourish plants, enrich the soil and encourage a strong healthy root system.
Yates Thrive Natural Fish & Seaweed+ Plant Food Concentrate
A complete plant food enriched with natural fish, seaweed, humates, molasses and more - boosted with NPK to improve plant and soil vitality.
Yates Premium Potting Mix
A premium potting mix, ideal for all potted plants and shrubs, including ornamentals, fruit trees, vegies and herbs.
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