It happens to everyone. You look out the window and realize that you can't tell the weeds from the basil, and your rosemary has become engulfed in bindweed.  If you are not impressed with your garden this year, there is still time to recover. Some of the problems that many gardeners face are universal. They all can be resolved with a little common sense and a few tricks of the trade. Here are some basic issues that happen to all gardeners, and how to get control of your herb garden once again.

 

Weeds have taken over - Perhaps the most common, weeds taking over the garden is an age old problem. It is likely that you overestimated how much time you would be able to care for the garden, or weather has been rainy and too wet to get out there (the weeds don't care). Sometimes it's just a matter of not feeling like being eaten by mosquitoes and black flies to the point that you justifying the weeds by thinking they aren't large enough to matter-that is, until you look out and they have won. 

I like to take a sturdy pair of shears out there and just hack off weeds at the bottom. It's not only effective, but very satisfying. A nice benefit to having such large weeds is that they are large on the top and each plant cut down leaves quite a large area of exposed soil. Remember to mulch your plants to death after trimming back the weeds. 

Your plants have become overgrown - This is the result of benign neglect and/or a soft hearted gardener. It can be hard to trim back a fast growing herb, but if you don't, there will be plenty of gangly branches and barely any leaves.

Cut those herbs back severely, fertilize, and watch your herbs recover in a more effective way. 

Things have died - Often the untold story of the gardener (both new and experienced), herbs die all season for various reasons. Don't be embarrassed to the point that you give up. Everyone fails at gardening and that's ok. Just pull up the dead stuff and replant to your heart's content. Now is the perfect time to get replacement plants at half the cost too. 

More bugs than herbs - If you don't like using chemicals in your herb garden, handpicking and other more organic methods all use more energy to do what a spritz from a bottle can do. This means you must take the time to get out there every day to keep bugs numbers down. It's ok if you have been overrun by bugs. It's not too late to get back in the game by pulling up plants that seem to be covered the worst by them, weed completely, and use organic products like netting and Diatomaceous earth to cut down on future bugs. 

Herbs are fading fast - Midsummer is the time to add fertilizer. Even if it's not midsummer, any time  you see your herbs starting to lose their healthy green appearance, you should give them a dose of weak fertilizer.  An easy homemade version can be made from soaking nettles in water for 3 weeks and then applying the resulting brew. Yarrow, couch grass, coltsfoot, and comfrey are other herbs and plants that can be brewed into an herbal fertilizer. 

Midsummer is time to freshen up the herb garden. This gives it the strength to keep producing for the rest of the season, and gives you a second chance at being a successful gardener.