The pleasantly scented curry herb is enjoying increasing popularity, even if it does not replace the spice mixture of the same name in the kitchen. It can be grown in a pot on the balcony or windowsill, or in the garden in a mild region.
How do you properly care for curry herb?
Curry herb care includes: sowing or purchasing as a potted plant, sunny to semi-shady location, moderately dry to dry soil, monthly fertilization, sparing watering, regular cutting and frost-free overwintering. Curry herb is not hardy and grows 20 to 70 cm high.
Location and soil
The curry herb prefers to be in full sun, but it also thrives quite well in a partially shaded location. The plant likes it warm and dry. The soil can be gravelly to sandy and calcareous. The curry herb cannot tolerate waterlogging at all.
Sowing curry herbs
Curry herb is relatively easy to grow from seeds. It is best to grow the herb on the windowsill or in a heated greenhouse. At around 18 °C the germination time is around two weeks. The young plants are only allowed into the garden or onto the balcony after the ice saints have passed, they are still quite sensitive.
Planting curry herbs
As an alternative to sowing, you can also buy curry herb in pots from a well-stocked nursery. If you plant it in the garden, keep enough distance from neighboring plants. The planting distance should be at least 30 to 40 centimeters. Curry herb grows more in width than in height. Depending on the species, this is 20 to 70 centimeters for the fully grown herb.
Watering and fertilizing
The curry herb is quite frugal and requires only a few nutrients. Therefore, one fertilization per month is usually sufficient. It is best to use (liquid) herbal fertilizer if the curry herb is intended for consumption. You should also use water sparingly. The curry herb copes better with drought than with waterlogging, but it should not dry out completely.
Cutting curry cabbage
If the curry herb is not harvested or cut back regularly, the herb will go bald. Therefore, you should use pruning shears or a harvesting knife from time to time. This will encourage the curry herb to branch out and make it nice and bushy. If you harvest regularly, special pruning is usually not necessary.
Curry herb in winter
The curry herb is not hardy; it doesn't particularly like temperatures below + 10 °C. Therefore, it is better to overwinter the herb indoors in a cool region. For example, a frost-free greenhouse or an unheated winter garden are suitable.
Curry herb in a nutshell:
- perennial woody subshrub
- not hardy
- Size: 20 to 70 cm high, up to twice as wide
- ideal harvest time shortly before flowering
- Flowering time: between May and September
- yellow flowers, silver-gray leaves
- Location: sunny to partially shaded
- Soil: moderately dry to dry, gravelly to sandy
Tip
With its silvery, hairy leaves, the curry herb is an ornament in the summer garden.
