Severus Snape. and Professor Sprout are two of our favorite character in Harry Potter and their story inspired the sister team to begin exploring potion making and herbology

From our hidden garden in the city the HipMonster’s sister team will bring you tips on growing herbs in a city, how best to preserve and prepare your herbs and  how to have fun!  

We started our herb garden by clearing and perparing several patches in our yard that were suitable for growing herbs. We ended up with two beds that received full midday sun and the others were in the shade most of the day during summer. Our yard is old so to prepare the beds we dug down 24 inches and churned in lost of fresh dirt. All of the beds had good drainage.

After the beds were done, we observed how much sun they received and how the water drained.bUsing this information we researched the best herbs for each bed focusing on herbs that were well-suited for San Francisco’s climate. Here is a good article to start your research.

Here is a list of some of the herbs that worked best:

• Thyme
• Yerba Buena
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Oregano
• Tarragon
• Red Veined Sorrel
• Chives
• Basil
• Parsley
• Onions
• Wild Garlic
• Roses
• Lavendar
  • English
  • Spanish
• Mint
  • Spearmint
  • Mojito
  • Peppermint

Most of our yard has is dedicated to native plants or flowers that are good for bees. This give us flowers nearly year round. The credit for most of the planting is the prior owner who too great care to attract bees and birds. We have tried to follow in her footsteps and have several bummble bee nests throughout our yard as well as lots of honey bees from neighboring hives.

Many of the flowers are perfect for drying but most are not good in flower aggrangment because they die too quickly once cut. Here is a great article on the types of flowers in out yard. Even though most of the flowers are native we still need to care or them and feritize the beds a few times a year using liquid kelp. The most import thing is to never rip up the flower after the flowers die. We leave them to assure the seeds will spread for next year’s crop.  This does look a little unkept but the next spring will make up for it,

 

And now our Harry Potter fandom kicks in. Given our growing collection of herbs an dried flowers we decided to make to our own potion cabinate hidden deep in our basement!

From our store we craft little bags filled with ground up herbs and flowers as presents.

And bottled up our best herbs to be used in our cooking!