Why Purchase Herbs At The Supermarket?

by

Oliver Jackson

Herbs are no doubt among the easiest plants to grow in your garden. Many of them are fairly drought tolerant and have a blooming period albeit short. In addition, herbs lend a delicious fragrance to the garden.

While most herbs are easily grown in containers which is a major plus, if you have space, consider planting an entire herb garden. It needn’t take that much space. A plot of land measuring approximate 200-400 square feet should do you quite nicely. Find out the diameter of a mature plant; obtain some graph paper and sketch out your garden before you dig a single hole. Remember to allow at least 1 foot of space between mature plants for ease of weeding and pruning.

One of the most fragrant herbs to add to your garden is lavender. The scent of lavender in bloom is heavenly and is wonderful for making scented sachets to hang in your closet or place in your dresser drawers. This is the only herb I would suggest you plant as many as you have space for as those sachets make wonderful gifts.

As the song goes, 4 great savory herbs to add to your garden are Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Fresh chopped parsley is a wonder addition to potato and pasta salads, not to mention a lovely garnish for many other dishes. Try drying sage leaves to add to many dishes including stuffing for turkey and chicken. And, both rosemary and thyme are excellent accents when roasting poultry and lamb among other savory dishes.

Tarragon is a wonderful addition to soups and vegetables. This herb is also good in tuna, egg, pasta and green salads. Add when making sauces for fish or chicken, it’s a must for b arnaise sauce.

If you intend upon canning pickled vegetables from your garden or making pretty vinegars for gifts think about planting some dill. While its true you can purchase dried dill weed very cheaply, there is no way you can get a full stalk of dill unless you grow it or pay rather dearly for it when needed in quantity.

In my opinion, no herb garden is complete without chives. In fact, if I could plant only one herb, it would be chives because they are so very useful. While I love green onions, by the time I get around to using them, alas they all but lifeless. No problem with chives growing right outside my door. They not only add that touch of needed green, they also have that subtle onion flavor which is perfect for salads and potato toppings.

Unfortunately, another one of my favorite herbs is not worth planting. Cilantro tends to bolt so quickly you would be lucky to retrieve a leaf or two. Obviously those that grow cilantro commercially know something we don’t know and they aren t telling. If you figure it out please let me in on the secret. I will let you in on my secret for preserving store bought cilantro, however. Place the bunch of cilantro in a glass of water and cover with the plastic bag it came in. This way, the cilantro will stay fresh and crisp for up to 2 weeks in your fridge.

On a final note, let’s talk about mint. A favorite of mine is pineapple mint. It has a wonderful fragrance and taste and makes a lovely tea and garnish. However, there is a real problem with mint. It’s tangled roots go deep and it tends to try to take over every other plant in the garden. Spray it with Round-up and it comes right back again. Once planted, you simply can’t get rid of it! So, if you want to add mint to your garden, plant it in a container and move the container often enough to insure it doesn’t take root in the ground through the drainage hole in the container.

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Article Source:

ArticleRich.com

Submitted by: K. Hanks

Online marketing, in particular search marketing is one industry that is expected to have double digit growth despite the downward economy. When focused properly the ROI from online marketing can be significant, the premise being that you need to know what to focus on. While search marketing can lead to a lot of excitement and potential, beware of less than reputable professionals.

Red Flag 1 – The Word Guarantee: The only thing an online marketing professional can promise you is to put forth a good faith effort and fulfill the obligations of the contract. The results of the efforts are a complete wildcard. Why is this?

– Search engines constantly change their algorithms.

– The agency or professional you are contracting with does not own the search engine, let alone have any authority of natural search results.

What can you do? This is where due diligence in the proposal stage becomes important. Check the companys references and past clients. Learn about what successes the past client has observed and learn what advantages and try to uncover potential shortcomings of the agency or professional you are considering working with.

Red Flag 2 – a New Website: New sites are exciting, but present many challenges for search marketing professionals. A brand new site, which to a SEO professional may include sites less than a year old, faces an instant uphill battle. At best youll be another website with a proposition of why your company performs something better, faster, or cheaper. At worst, youll be a website tailoring to a market with no search volume. In the case of the later, it might be easy for an SEO professional to get you ranking well, but it wont do any good if you rank well for keywords that no one searches on.

– New sites can be more work to rank than established sites that are at least 3 years old.

– New sites will require a significant effort in the area of link building because by definition a new site will have almost no inbound links, a critical component of why websites rank well

– New sites will need other mediums to attract visitors either offline, or online through pay per click, or affiliate marketing.

What can you do? Keyword research – In an ideal world, before you hire a web designer, or consider content strategy youll know what keywords your website needs to discuss. Ideally youll map out the keywords to be discussed within plans of the websites architecture.

Red Flag 3 – Not Inquiring about your Call to Actions: The reason online marketing has grown so quickly and been embraced by companies of all different sizes is that the web has the ability to be tracked better than any of marketing medium. You would be surprised how many websites (and professionals) view success online in forms of visits. The metric that any professional needs to start with, and then work backwards, is around calls to action. What is the purpose of your site? Are you an e-commerce site selling goods and services? Are you a brochureware site that is looking to receive inbound leads to hand off to sales? Ask yourself these questions:

– Do you understand what your calls to action need to be?

– Does your contractor understand your business?

– Can your contractor provide reports of benefit of online marketing progress as it relates to your businesss calls to action?

What can you do? This is where experience matters. Having a professional working on your site that understands your business and has ideas around maximizing the efficiency of your calls to action is critical.

Search marketing is a fast expanding industry. The need to services is outpacing the ability to train highly skilled professionals that can have one on one client facing interactions. Look to spot the potential red flags of an inexperienced professional, or one that does not have a good fit for your company. Even within search marketing there are subsets that a professional typically focuses on, including: pay per click (PPC), organic (natural) search, content development, link building, and analytics, among others. Within these concentrations you might find a particular professional focuses on a particular channel such as brochureware, or e-commerce within a B2B, B2C, or C2C environment.

There are a lot of inexperienced online marketing professionals that can do more harm than good. Though typically well intentioned, they either lack the experience to analysis your business or are likely to take shortcuts that go against SEO best practices because they guaranteed a particular result. Before you pick a search marketing professional, ensure you are selecting the professional that understands your business and has the capabilities to bring your website to the next level.

About the Author: A Sr. Account Manager at

Atlanta search marketing agency

TwentySix2 Marketing,

Keith Hanks

has a passion for

Atlanta online marketing services

and content strategy services.

Source:

isnare.com

Permanent Link:

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