Herb Crop in Alberta on Half an Acre
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Robert Layton
Posted on: May 06, 2005

I’m looking for a herb crop that I can grow on approximately .5 of an acre. I live in Lethbridge, Alberta and would like to put the back yard which backs on a golf course to better use that simply a golf ball catching zone.

There are many crop options. Much depends on the kind of business you want to run. You could, for example, grow bulk dried herbs for small wholesale buyers. Or, you could grow fresh cut herbs for sale to local restaurants or at local farmer’s markets. Or you could grow herbs to make your own herbal products such as vinegars, teas, bath products, etc. You could focus on culinary or medicinal or aromatic herbs, or grow a mix of them.

You are somewhat limited by your zone in what you can grow. You need to do some research to decide what type of business you want to start and then decide what herbs you can grow in your zone. Because of the small area, you will likely have the greatest success with value-added products such as the herbal products mentioned above. There are many creative ideas for products in some of the books listed in the "GrowerZone" section of our website.

To determine your zone check the hardiness zone on our website:

http://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=./Zones/zones.html

To check the hardiness of any herb that we sell check the Richters Herb Growing Database:

http://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=./InfoSheets/webbase.html

(Just enter the name of the herb of interest, one at a time, and the zone and other basic growing info will come up.)

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