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Herb gardening is becoming more and more popular every day and for good reason. Herbs have practical value, serve a purpose and with herb gardening, you can actually get to use your plants. When most people think of herb gardening, they automatically think of cooking, but herbs are also grown for their pleasant aromas and their beauty.

One important part of herb gardening, is drying the herbs, for use during the winter months, especially if you plan on cooking with them. First, the tops of leafy herbs have to be cut, washed, and hung up, for the water to evaporate. Then, tie the stems together and hang them up in a paper bag, to dry properly. After two, to three weeks, they can be removed. Crumble the leaves, dry them out in the oven and store in a glass jar.

One of the most common herbs gown in herb gardening, is Basil. 'Dark Opal' and regular Green Basil, are beautiful additions to any garden and are often used as decoration. Dark Opal has light pink flowers and dark red leaves. Basil isn't just used for its looks, it is used for extra flavour in tomato juices and pastes.

Chives are very petite looking and resemble a blade of grass. They are much stronger than they look however and will grow well, through a drought. Their toughness and sturdiness makes Chives a perfect plant, for herb gardening, especially if the gardener doesn't want plants that require a lot of hassle. Chives are good when used in salads, egg dishes and many different sauces.

Mint is also very simple to grow and is good to use in mint jelly, mint juleps, lemonade and any other kind of fruity drink. Mint is also good in herb gardening, for its unique minty smell. Two herbs that appear in nearly everyone's herb garden, are Thyme and Sage. Both of these herb gardening favourites, are used for flavouring soups, chicken, turkey, pork and other sausages. Sage is also grown sometimes, for its beautiful blue spiked flowers.

Lavender is probably the best smelling herb, in all of herb gardening and is often used in candles, as a perfume scent and to improve the smell in linen chests. The light purple flowers smell absolutely lovely.

Other types of herbs often grown in herb gardening, include Borage (used in salads), Chervil (used in egg dishes), sweet Marjoram (flavours lamb, fish, salad, and soup), Sesame (flavours crackers, cookies and bread) and Dill (flavours meats and used in pickles). Herb gardening allows gardeners to use herbs from their own garden, for cooking, looks and smell. Herb gardening will produce much fresher herbs, with more flavour than store-bought herbs and are a lot cheaper.