Growing herbs is a great way to step into gardening, and having a portable patio herb garden makes the process convenient and easy. If you’d like to start growing your own herbs in a mobile raised garden bed, here’s how!

Create a Portable Patio Herb Garden in 4 Easy Steps

*Thank you Better Choice Products for gifting me this mobile raised garden bed to facilitate this post.*

Herbs are often overlooked when people think about growing a garden. They shouldn’t be though! Many herbs are seriously easy to grow and are attractive to pollinators. They also help you take your cooking game up a notch! 

Choose the right type of container

Herbs are the perfect plants to grow in containers, raised gardens, or window boxes but there are a couple important consideration when choosing the right container. Drainage holes in the bottom are a must for any type of herb container garden you plan. It’s also important that the container you choose be big enough to give the herbs room to grow.

I’ve been gardening for a long time and finally made the switch to raised garden beds a couple of years ago. I like raised beds for a number of reasons, but this mobile raised garden bed from Best Choice Products takes gardening to a whole new level. 

I love that it is on wheels, I love that I don’t have to bend over to take care of my fresh herbs, and love how quick and easy it is to move my herb garden from one place to another.

In addition to being convenient, my new herb garden adds a nice aesthetic to our back patio. We just finished our patio last fall and making it appealing and a comfortable place to relax is one goal for this summer. The next thing we want to do with our patio is add in some comfy seating and lighting. I have my eye on this set wicker six-piece set and we have the lights ready to string!

Choose types herbs you like for your patio garden

Making your own patio herb garden is not hard. When deciding what herbs to grow, I consider a couple factors. My first priority is to choose herbs I enjoy using in cooking. However, it’s not always a waste to grow food you won’t eat if the herbs are good for pollinators or natural pest control. I also like herbs that thrive on neglect – nothing seems to kill basil, thyme, and oregano.

Herbs make great companion plants to include in your garden so I add grow of herbs that I don’t necessarily plant to eat. In my patio herb garden, though, I want to focus on herbs I plan to use in the kitchen. 

My favorite herbs for cooking are fresh cilantro, oregano, thyme, basil, and chives. I start some herbs from seed but always end up picking up more herbs at garden centers as well. There’s just something about garden centers – can’t stay away in the spring. 

My herb garden contains: basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, lavender, sage, and Mexican thyme as well. I’ve never tried Mexican thyme, but I like its flowers and I know my honey bees will too!

What you need to know about planting and harvesting herbs

It’s very important to plant your herbs in a good quality potting soil that provides nutrients and helps with drainage. You’ll want to have enough room for the herbs to develop a strong root system. To plant, dig a hole larger than than the plant, add in a bit of compost, and then cover the roots well with the potting mix. 

After you’ve planted, make sure to give all the herbs a good drink of water. Keep them watered according to growing directions.

As the herbs grow, you will want to pinch them off to encourage bushier growth. The more you harvest, the more they will grow so harvest early and often, leaving enough behind that they will continue to grow. 

Location is key

Most herbs need at least 6-8 hours of sun so make sure to put your herb garden in a nice, sunny spot. I love how easy this wood planter is to move around. I’ve already wheeled it from front porch to back patio, trying to find the perfect spot. 

I also tucked the entire planter safely back inside last night after a severe thunderstorm hit our area promising damaging winds, torrential rainfall, and the potential for hail. This morning, I wheeled it back outside again. Easy peasy. Now the big question is, where do I keep my new herb garden? Front porch? Or back patio?

More information about my mobile raised garden bed from Best Choice Products

I really like this wooden planter! Shipping was fast and free, and it was easy to assemble. I have assembled my share of furniture and appreciate that the instructions for this planter were clear and easy to follow. I definitely recommend using a cordless drill. There are so many screws – using a screwdriver would take a lot longer.

The directions said it should take about 30 minutes to assemble, and I was skeptical. It did take me a little a little bit longer, but I managed to put together (by myself) in under an hour. I also decided to protect it with a oil-based outdoor varnish so that did add another step, but I think it will be better for the planter in the long term. At under $150, I think the planter is reasonably priced. You can learn more about this elevated wood planter here. 

Want more gardening posts? You may like these:

How to Care for Sun Tolerant Hostas

Growing a Cut Flower Container Garden

Shade Loving Perennials for Show Stopping Containers

I’m so excited to watch my herbs grow on our new patio! What are your favorite herbs to grow?

Cucumber Beetles don’t take long to wipe our your cucumber, pumpkin, squash, and other cucurbit plants. If you don’t get a handle on them quickly they will wreak havoc in your garden. Here are 5 organic methods of pest control to rid your garden of the dreaded cucumber beetle.

For three years in a row now, I have lost my cucumber crop to the blasted cucumber beetles. One of my favorite foods to preserve from the garden is my Grandmother’s Secret Dill Pickles, and so the loss of my cucumber crop really breaks my heart. Last year I was able to can a few quarts because some good friends gave me some of their excess cucumbers, but I have not had a good pickle canning session for many years now.

Do you see that nasty little yellow and black striped bug on my cucumber plant? They may look all cute and harmless BUT let me tell you, they are real, real pests. They are very destructive.

Besides being able to eat cucurbit leaves in a matter of days, they also cause bacterial wilt which kills the plants. I can live in harmony with many bugs, but not these guys. Killing my cucumbers means war, and I am tired of losing that war!! I’ve tried a few things to kill cucumber beetles over the last few years, but nothing’s been successful. Until this year. This year, I caught them early. And I struck hard and I struck fast.

6 Ways to Kill Cucumber Beetles, Organically

This year, I turned to Diatomaceous Earth. Last year, when I found the dang beetles, I read that food grade Diatomaceous Earth can be used as an organic insecticide, so I ordered a 50 pound bag from Azure Standard. According to the National Pesticide Information Center, Diatomaceous Earth is a type of silica made from the fossilized remains of diatoms. It’s a fine, white powder and it’s edible. Under a microscope, it supposedly looks like shards of glass and it is deadly for any bugs with an exoskeleton, like cucumber beetles, and fleas, and all sorts of nasty parasites. You can read more here at this useful article by Paul Wheaton.

I have read that you should be careful not to inhale DE, but last year when my husband suffered from intestinal parasites, I broke out the DE and made him drink some diluted with water. He also insisted on taking a course of antibiotics, but I have read that DE will do the trick without the antibiotics. So file that tidbit of information away for the next time you get intestinal parasites {or head lice…}.

Essentially, the way I killed my cucumber beetles was to dump 100% Food-Grade Diatomaceous Earth all over my cucurbits. I lifted the leaves and doused it good on the underneath since the cucumber beetles like to hang out on the underneath side of the plants. And I covered the dirt all around the plants, too. Because despite having read that cucumber beetles don’t crawl around, I see them crawling all over the ground. So I think they do crawl.The first day I found the cucumber beetles, they were all over. I thought about the situation for a few minutes {because I had to remember WHY I bought that big bag of DE last year…} and headed out to my garden shed. I grabbed the DE and spread it all over using the method I described above.

The next day, I checked on my garden. Instead of finding hundreds of them, I found maybe 10. And I killed them all. The next day, I found ZERO cucumber beetles and I was very encouraged. However, after a few days, 5 maybe, I started finding a few more beetles, so today I covered them all up again with more Diatomaceous Earth since I am going away for 5 days and won’t be able to check on them. It is so helpful to be in the garden every single day to see find stuff like this. I’ve left strict instructions with my husband to be on the lookout for cucumber beetles!

Other organic methods for killing Cucumber Beetles:

1. 1. NEEM Oil – this is the first thing I tried. I’m guessing that it didn’t work because I was just too late. I didn’t know right away how destructive they were, and by the time I got the NEEM Oil, it was probably too just late. But it is supposed to be effective.
   2. Delay planting – planting your cucumber plants a little later in the season is another way to foil cucumber beetles. If you can wait to plant your cucumbers by a few weeks, you might have luck warding off the blasted beetles. Start them in your home instead and set them out when they are bigger and better able to fight off the beetles.
   3. Row covers – The aren’t that hard to make and they are effective. The one word of caution is that your plants still need to be pollinated so you will have to uncover the rows while the plants are flowering. Learn how to easily cover a raised bed in this post.
   4. Companion plant – certain crops can help repel cucumber beetles. Companion planting can be very effective when done correctly. Nasturtiums, onions, and radish are great plants to include in your cucurbit area to help keep the cucumber beetles at bay. For more companion planting ideas, read this post.
   5. Trap crops – some cucurbits are less susceptible to bacterial wilt than others. A good trap crop to plant is the blue hubbard squash. For some reason, cucumber beetles really like this squash and don’t harm it as much as they do other crops.

Cautions I have read about DE –

I read not to use the DE on flowering plants as it also kills the bees that pollinate the plants. A very helpful person on my facebook page told me that I can manually pollinate the plants with a Q-Tip, if need be. One of my plants was already flowering and I am spreading the DE anyway. It does have baby cucumbers on it, so we’ll see what happens.

Otherwise, my garden is growing good. I did find one more bad garden pest on my potatoes, and I will tell you about that soon! But everything else is looking really nice.

Have you ever dealt with cucumber beetles? What did you do? And most importantly, how do you stop them from coming back next year? I am really considering burning my garden this year after it’s done.