How to grow Garden Thyme in Pots or Containers

Hi Gardening Friends

Well here is some Information on growing the Common Herb in pots or containers called Garden Thyme. Botanical Name: Thymus vulgaris. Common Name: German or Common Garden or Winter Thyme. 100,000 seeds per Ounce.

First of all you need to go to your local garden center or greenhouse and see if they have some plants of the herb common garden thyme. And if so buy about three plants to make up a large pot or container for on your patio or back porch. also when you are at your local garden center get some good potting soil to put in the container that you are going to use. What I would use is Pro- Mix and just fill the containers with the pre mix soil. You most likely need a container the size of a ten inch hanging basket or larger for to plant the Thyme in. Now when you get home you take and fill the container with your potting soil and start to plant the thyme in the pots. In a ten inch basket you can use just one plant because the plant will spread in the basket. Make sure that you fertilize your plants and water them thoroughly. Them put the containers in the shade for a few days until the thyme becomes establish. Then sit the containers or hang the basket out on the patio or porch. Then when they start to grow you can take off what you need for in your cooking.

Now if you want to plant the herb Garden Thyme from seed. Here how to do this.

Here is what you do to grow Common Garden Thyme from Seed. I would first go to my local garden center and see if they have the seed to grow the herb. If they do not then get your seed catalogs out and look up and see if they carry in their herb section of their seed catalog. If they do then buy what ever amount you want to grow. When you receive the Common Garden Thyme seeds get your clean sterilized plastic seed flat and fill it half full of germination mix and soak the germination mix in the flat and let set until the germination mix drain well. Then get your seed packet and take it and start to broadcast it very lightly across the entire flat. After that you can cover the seed very lightly with some germination mix out of the bag of germination mix that you have to cover the fine seed very lightly. Now you set your flat under grow lights and on a heat pad and if you have a greenhouse on a bench that has heat pipes under the bench in the greenhouse. After you do this you should mist the flat thoughtly and keep the seed flat evenly moist don't let it dried out until after the seedling are well germinated. Growing seeds in the greenhouse can be quickly, four to seven days or longer, at 70F (21C). Many notable varieties include creeping thyme. Thymus serpyllum, a hardy perennial that grows up to 3 to 5 inches (8 to 10 cm) tall. T. vulgaris, haves narrow -leaf French type, has about 50% more germination in 4 to 5 days at a temperature of 70F (21C). This is just a few thyme varieties that you can grow from seed in the greenhouse or at home with Gro Lights. They will germination under lights you may have to put a heat mat under the flat to get the seeds to germinate. You follow the above steps and you should be successful with all types of Thyme from seeds in germinating them.

Growing Common Garden Thyme from cutting that you root in Greenhouse.

And if you have some stock plants of common garden thyme and yo take a cutting about 11/2 to 2 inches long and you strip the lower leaves off the stems then you can plant the cutting that you prepared and you stick them in packs that are clean and sterilized and you put germination mix soil in the packs or plug trays. You can now stick the cutting in the tray and after would mist the cuttings and keep them misted daily until they are rooted. Then after about 4 to 6 weeks keeping the cutting water and fertilizer they will be ready to transplant in to bigger pots or larger containers. Remember to keep them water and fertilizer and keep them water doing hot dry spells and protected turning the winter months. Doing the winter months take the containers or pots to protected areas so that they don't freeze and dry out or died from being so cold. So if you have a greenhouse or a warm sun porch you could put your pots in there to keep them over the winter. If you take them in on your porch. You need to keep the plants water during the whole winter season as long as they are inside you need to water at less once a week. and every other week you should fertilize the plants with a water soluble liquid fertilizer. This is for garden Thyme that you are growing inside your house not for plants that you are growing outside. Outside growing of thyme is basics the same as growing indoors you need to water the plants when they are dry as you do indoors. Keep the plants well water is very important to being successful with growing the common garden thyme. And what you should be doing in the growing season you should keep them fertilized every over week with a water soluble fertilizer being used.

Now you can transplant the Seedlings when they get large enough.

Now you can transplant the seedlings when they get large enough into packs or plug trays after you get the plants transplanted water them well. And set them on the greenhouse bench were they stay growing until time for them to be transplanted into bigger pots or containers in professional potting soil or soil less mix. After you do that and you have them transplanted you have to soak the plants very well and let them drains. Then you can set them up on the bench in the greenhouse or in a shady location outside until they take hole into the newly planted soil.What you need to do is keep them watered and fertilized and when they grow and get large enough you can take scissors or clippers and cut them back to the pot and then they will grow back with fertilizer and water. After you cut them back you can take the thyme and wash it real good and put them on a cookie sheet and place it in a oven to dry on low temperature until they are dry and after it drys you can place it in jars and it will keep indefinitely.

Here are some ways to cook with Common Garden Thyme.

What you can do with thyme dried or fresh is use it in French and Italian cooking. In different dishes in beef,pork,lamb, chicken and fish dishes. Here is a beef dish with thyme being used. Pot Roast with the herb thyme being used. Pork Roast with thyme being used in the dish and Lamb Chops being made with thyme and a Roasted Chicken dish also you can used it in Baked Fish dishes and thyme can be used in many Soup dishes. I hope everyone would try to do this one time and let me know what you think and how you did with growing thyme.

Have Fun and Good Luck with growing Common Garden Thyme and Happy Gardening.

Gardener Den