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Nothing completes a great recipe better than fresh herbs straight from your garden. Have you ever pulled out a recipe that calls for a specific fresh herb, gone to the grocery and couldn’t find it? Or you find it but it’s not the quality you want? This is where homegrown herbs come to the rescue.
It’s easy to grow herbs at home, and you don’t need a great deal of space to do it. Herbs grow well in containers on patios in partial to full sun as well as in landscapes and raised beds.
Every herb has a season, pun intended. However, herbs can be grown year-round in Louisiana. They are categorized by the season in which they grow.
Cool-season ones grow best in cooler weather, and warm-season ones do best in late spring to early autumn. Herbs are further categorized into annuals and perennials. Annuals will complete their lifecycle in one year, and perennials will live for several years.
You can grow these plants from seeds, or you may choose transplants. I use transplants because they are easy. Seeds, however, are much less expensive, although they take more time and planning. If you are starting with seeds, you can begin planting them up to one month before you plan to set them out in a garden or planter. Begin seeds in trays in a hot house, a greenhouse or windowsill that gets a great deal of light.
It’s important to know which herbs perform best in each season. Here’s a list of herbs suggested by AgCenter state vegetable specialist Kiki Fontenot.
Annual herbs for spring and summer are also known as warm-season herbs and are best planted in the garden after the last frost date. Those dates are typically March 15 in south Louisiana.
Warm-season herbs that generally grow well in Louisiana include basil, lemon verbena, rosemary, sage, thyme, lavender, catnip and bay laurel.
Annual herbs for fall and winter are cool-season herbs that should be planted in the garden between September and February. Most cool-season herbs can tolerate normal winter freezes in Louisiana. Later in the cool season, in March or early April, plant larger transplants for harvesting in late May to early June.
Cool-season herbs that generally perform well in Louisiana include parsley, cilantro, chamomile, dill, oregano, borage, chives, garlic, celery, chicory, fennel, arugula and chervil.
Finally, don’t forget about perennial herbs that will produce year after year in the right conditions. Perennial herbs that do well in Louisiana include anise, hyssop, bay laurel, catmint and all other mints, lemon verbena, lemon balm, rosemary, Mexican tarragon, burnet, garlic, chives, oregano, pineapple sage and rue.
Although most perennial herbs can be planted throughout the year, they perform best when planted in the fall using transplants available at local nurseries. This allows them to become well established during the less-stressful cool season.
Thyme, sage, catnip, scented geraniums and lavender are perennial herbs that require excellent drainage to survive the summer. They may be more successful when grown in containers and placed in a location that gets some afternoon shade during the summer. These herbs can be short-lived and are susceptible to root and stem rots in the hot, wet conditions of the late summer season.
Several perennial herbs that have difficulty surviving our summers are grown here as cool-season annuals and include French tarragon, feverfew and chamomile.
A rule of thumb to keep your herbs producing and healthy is to be careful not to overharvest the foliage. Take no more than one third of the total foliage at any one time. Don’t forget that the flowers of herbs may also be used as a garnish or to flavor dishes as well as to attract pollinators. Many also may be used as cut flowers.
Herbs that have started flowering and setting seed can be harvested to replant for the next season. Be resourceful with your herb garden.
You also can harvest and dry or freeze herbs for later use before the crops wear out at the end of the growing season. Gather, rinse and tie a bunch together and hang them upside down in cool, dry places indoors with good air circulation for dried herbs. Store them in air-tight containers protected from light in your pantry or kitchen cabinets.
You may also freeze herbs after cutting by rinsing, drying and then finely chopping them. Store them in freezer bags laid thin in half-inch layers in the freezer, and be sure to label with the herb name and date.
There you have it. No recipe will ever suffer when you grow your own herbs. Bon appetit.

Louisiana established Jump Start, putting more emphasis on career and technical education, in 2014. Today, more than one in five high school students graduate with a “career” diploma, compared to less than 2% before Jump Start, and the number of industry credentials awarded has increased from 17,885 in 2014 to more than 90,000 in 2018, the state Department of Education says.
But John White, the state superintendent for K-12 education, says many people still see career-oriented education as less valuable than preparation for college.
“I still hear this phrase: ‘Well, that kid’s just a Jump Start kid,’” White said. “There remains a stigma that has been perpetrated by society upon the career and technical education system.”
At the 2020 Jump Start Convention in Baton Rouge Tuesday, White called for again restructuring how the system works, which he said would keep it on the “cutting edge” and help combat the stigma.
There are 51 unique Jump Start “pathways,” compared to 16 “career clusters” recognized at the federal level. White will ask the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to establish a “more cohesive set of pathways” that is easier for students, parents, educators and employers to understand.
Other goals of “Jump Start 2.0” include increasing access to workplace-based learning and creating new regional governance structures. The department says the original “Jump Start Regional Teams” no longer are functioning in all parts of the state.
And for the first time, panels that choose the state’s “student of the year” will include a career and technical education supervisor and consider industry-based credentials and awards, White said. Having a top Jump Start student named student of the year would help alleviate the stigma, he suggests.
Tim Johnson, executive director of the Louisiana Construction Education Foundation, announced a new scholarship meant to help Jump Start students improve their skills and transition to the workplace. He said he hoped 40 to 50 students per year would benefit.
White recently announced plans to leave the education department in March.

Over 12 million acres have been burned in the historic wildfires across Australia, leaving approximately 1 billion animals without refuge.
At Berwick High School, students in B.J. Castaneda’s World Geography class learned about the Australian area and are keeping up with the news of the wildfires. Castaneda said the kids wanted to do something to help, so she went on the hunt for a way they could do just that.
“Most organizations helping the Australian area require a monetary donation, and as a school, that isn’t something we can really do,” Castaneda said. “But we found out that baby marsupials, especially kangaroos and koalas, are being found alive inside their mothers that died due to the fire.
“We learned that rescuers need pouches to put these babies in since the baby is used to that security.”
Castaneda presented the idea to her classes to begin bringing in materials needed to make marsupial mittens and joey pouches and the students responded. Students brought in fabrics, donated sweatshirts and other materials needed to craft the pouches.
“Not just any fabric can be used inside the pouches because of the animal’s claws, but the students didn’t have to buy materials, a lot just donated things like old sweatshirts they already had,” Castaneda said.
Castaneda enlisted the family and consumer science class at Berwick High School to construct the pouches.
“There are two types of pouches, one that a person can hold, which helps with feeding purposes, and one that hangs,” Castaneda said.
The students certified in sewing through the family and consumer science course are handling the sewing portion, but there are a lot of steps in the creation of a finished pouch that other students are able to help complete.
Castaneda also needed a way to get these pouches in the hands of those that can use them.
She found a company named Barnhill Preserve in Ethel who is sending experienced animal care teams to help some of the Australian wildlife centers in an effort to save animals from the wildfires. The teams being sent by Barnhill Preserve are bringing medical supplies and the volunteers will be able to use the pouches the students are creating.
Berwick High School’s Assistant Principal, Noelle Lowrimore, utilized social media to spread the word about the project and people in the community brought in donations as well.
“We received donations like a whole pallet of water to help with dehydrated animals,” Castaneda said.
Castaneda is excited about the project and the student’s involvement with it. “This is a way for student’s to have global awareness and we are trying to do some good.”
The pouches were completed on Tuesday and will be sent to the Barnhill Preserve next week.