I find you can often divide gardeners into two camps: those who started gardening by growing herbs and those who think herbs are too fussy or difficult to grow. Now that we can buy fresh herbs in just about any supermarket, we’re not as desperate to have a pot of basil or chives on the windowsill. But packaged herbs will never compete with fresh picked and cooking with herbs is just one of their many pleasures.

Growing herbs is still a very popular topic and I’ve been writing a lot about herb gardening this past year. I’ve compiled the articles into an 8 Lesson Herb Gardening Course that is now available here. Each lesson covers an aspect of herb gardening, a featured herb plant and a How-To for using herbs. You can subscribe to the newsletter version and receive one lesson a week, for eight weeks, or simply pull up the course outline and click on the subjects that interest you. Either way, I hope it entices you to plant more herbs throughout your gardens and enjoy them for their many delights.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.