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One of the best outdoor projects: Perennial Herb Garden
If you are looking for a project to improve your home, a really good outdoor project for any home is a perennial herb garden. Perennials come back year after year reducing the time spent replanting and sowing new seed. Also, herbs are a great staple for many dishes, making it useful as well! Its a win all around.
As cuilnary arts, sustainable farming, and human awareness of where our food comes from start to come more to the forefront of humanity's interest's, smaller garden areas within cities are predicted to become critical in future food security. This relationship with local gardeners who grow boutique herbs and vegetables will be helping provide local eateries with their ingredients to craft their foodie-loved creations. There is no better time then to start a perennial garden to get a small taste of this food-to-table revolution, and see if you want to pursue a side business from it one day. After all, people turning their yards into urban farms is also another popular way to repurpose space for side income. Even if you don't want to make money from it, you may want to get more into the ultilitarian landscaping approach to have a food forest you can pick from. Who knows, after a perennial garden, you may want to convert your whole yard to producing herbs, fruits, and vegetables!
Reasons to have an organic perennial herb garden in your yard or community:
Herb gardens open up a variety of culinary opportunities
Herb gardens make exploring adding flavor to a variety of dishes more accessible
Can be used as garnish, to help dress up a dish
Can be used to make oil/butter infusions
Can be used to flavor breads and dipping oils
Adding herbs to diet can yield health benefits
Saves money from buying it at the store
Perennials, as opposed to annuals, don't need to be replanted and come back each year
Supplemental aroma around Holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving
Useful in making decorative charcuterie boards
Helpful in side business endeavors; such as making boutique soap, oil infusions, salts, etc.
Organic gardening is better for you, the environment, and your backyard habitat
Certain herb varieties offer benefits to insects, or other benefits to having them in the garden
Good feature for resale of home, future home buyers may be looking for this
Pleasant to share with neighbors, friends, and family
If you live in a desert climate, it is harder to grow anything, but these heartier herbs can survive the majority of climates.
1. Rosemary
2. Sage
3. Chives
4. Thyme
5. Oregano
6. Lemongrass
Perennial garden dollar-cost value perspective:
From a cost perspective, I spent around 50$ on my small herb garden and probably spend ~5$/mo on water for it, thats an estimated 60$/yr. I have had tons of herbs, both annuals and perrenials. I love the basil and dill I grow, I always end up sharing it with my neighbors because I can't eat all of it. The rosemary's and oregano's grow rampantly, I need to cut them back often and share that as well. Since I use rosemary often in many slow cooker dishes, that is where I get my money's worth from a culinary perspective. I also use it as garnish and when making charcuterie boards around Christmas and Thanksgiving. Its hard to quantify, but if spent 50$ intially and than 60$/yr after that, and you pay 2$ for organic herbs at the grocery store. You would need to use herbs at least 30 times/yr to make it back from a simple monetary perspective as well as an additional 25 times over the lifetime of the garden. If you cook often or have a family, that probably won't be a problem.
From a yard value perspective, certain perennial herbs like lemongrass repel insects and unwelcome guests like rattlesnakes. Mexican Oregano can help attract butterflies and other more pleasant insects to the garden. Its good to look out for the addtional benefits herbs can have to your yard, as well as their benefits in your diet and in your dishes. Over the 4 years I have had my perennial garden, I have watched my yard transform and I see grass hoppers eating my mints all the time. I enjoy seeing the welcomed nature while knowing I have some plants that keep the unwelcome nature away. Its kind of like passive pest control and spider repellent, which can cost anywhere from 20-200$/yr. Established perennials gardens will also add some to resale value/aesthetic of a home and could be a feature future homebuyers look for in a home, just like solar power panel systems and 220V plugs for electric cars in the garage.
Return on investment of perennial gardens summary:
Unless you cook a lot, have a big family, or live in an area that gets lots of rain, you probably won't use your herbs enough to get money's worth from an herb purchasing perspective.
Depending on where you live, passive pest control via plants may be enough for you and could save you some time and money for that home maintenance task.
Gardens add a bit of home value and may become a feature future homebuyers look for.
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