An Herb Garden for Chickens

Sweet Basil

This herb is known around the world for its wonderful fragrance and flavor. The key ingredient in classic Italian pesto, Sweet Basil has big leaves that are fast and easy to grow so that you can make your own pesto to freeze for year-round use. It loves hot weather, so always wait until all danger of frost is past before planting in the garden in the spring, then harvest before the weather starts to cool down in fall. Great for containers, but be sure to keep watered. If you were to grow only one herb, this should probably be it. Dried basil just doesn’t have the aromatic quality of the fresh leaves, which are often added at the last minute to many Asian dishes. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Jalapeno Hot Pepper

Named for the town of Jalapa, Mexico, this is the most popular chile pepper in the United States. Jalapeño produces 3-inch, thick-walled, moderately hot pods with deep green color that matures to a bright red. The skin may show a netting pattern as fruit ages, but it does not affect flavor. Often, the heat of the peppers will vary, even those from the same plant. If peppers grow fast, get plenty of water, and are harvested soon, they may be milder than peppers that stay on the plant a long time, or that develop slowly and under stressful conditions. Widely adapted, jalapeño plants yield a bountiful harvest in dry or humid, hot or cool climates. The compact plants grow well in containers. Use jalapeño on nachos or in salsa, or smoke the mature red ones over mesquite chips to make your own chipotle sauce. Jalapeño became the first pepper in space when a bag full of pods accompanied astronauts on the shuttle Columbia in November 1982! Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Better Boy Tomato

High yields of smooth skinned, large fruit earn Better Boy a spot as one of the most popular tomatoes grown in the US and as one of our all time best sellers. The fruit has excellent classic tomato flavor with just the right balance of acid and sugar. This is a great slicing tomato. It is widely adapted throughout the country. Grow it in a tall cage or tie to a stake for support. The indeterminate vines are resistant to verticillium wilt (V), fusarium wilt (F), and nematodes (N). Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Sweet Green Bell Pepper

Bonnie's best hybrid sweet bell pepper! A heavy yielder of large fruits. A good all-round pepper for slicing, stuffing, and freezing. This bell produces lots of fresh bell peppers gradually over the growing season. Plants in our Alabama garden produce from June through October, yielding 30 or more peppers from each plant. (Your results will vary based on care and the length of your growing season.) This is a good-sized plant, so be prepared to stake if needed. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Cilantro

If you like the aromatic flavor of salsa served in Mexican restaurants, you'll like cilantro. The leaves have an instantly recognizable fragrance that fills a room when you cut them. Sometimes called Chinese parsley, its distinctive aroma and flavor is also part of Caribbean and Asian foods, lending flavor to recaito, salsas, curries, salads, chutneys, herbed butters, and meat marinades.Cilantro looks like flat leaf Italian parsley, but the leaves are thinner. It grows in a rosette of stemmy leaves that are ready to harvest shortly after planting. Young leaves have the best flavor, so be sure to harvest often. It is a fast-growing annual except in milder climates where it will overwinter. Cilantro grows tall and blooms at the end of its life, usually after the weather gets hot. After it blooms, harvest the seeds--they are what you buy in spice jars as coriander, another common ingredient in Asian cooking. You can grind the seeds or use them whole. Some gardeners also let the seeds drop to make new plants.Fall is a great time to grow cilantro in mild climates, as the plants are frost tolerant and love the cool weather in fall, winter, and early spring.Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Husky Red Cherry Tomato

This super sweet cherry tomato is a best seller because of its flavor, productivity, and good looks. If you like to snack on cherry tomatoes, this is a great choice. One of the popular "Husky" series developed especially for home gardens, the plant is stout, dark green and really pretty; it's one of the prettiest tomato plants that we grow. The vines are dwarf indeterminate, making them short and husky like a determinate type, usually between 3 and 4 feet, yielding clusters of tasty little cherry tomatoes in a small space over a long period of time. Perfect for pots, too. The dwarf vines stay neat and compact, but give the plant a little support on a stake or cage to keep it upright in rain and wind. Many juicy, sweet cherry tomatoes are borne on vines resistant to verticillium wilt (V) and fusarium wilt (F). Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Italian Flat Parsley

This Italian flat-leafed parsley has, of course, flat leaves, which distinguish it from the better-known curly-leafed parsley. At first the foliage might be easily confused with cilantro. However, its flavor is distinctly parsley, and it is favored for its deep flavor, which some say holds up better in cooking than curly parsley. It is popular in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. Easy to chop, the nutritious flat leaves are high in iron and in vitamins A, C, and E. A high chlorophyll content makes it a natural breath sweetener, too. This is a great plant for containers, especially for fall and winter in zone 7 and south. Of course, you can also use it in vegetable and herb beds. In a flower bed it makes a nice, green leafy companion to small flowers such as pansies. It is also more tolerant of hot weather than curly parsley (which can struggle during the peak of summer) and is frost tolerant. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Lavender

Fragrant purple flowers on tall spikes bloom right from the first year, creating a striking complement to the silvery gray foliage. You will love this plant, as the aroma is wonderfully calming. Ideal for drying and crafts, as well as fresh-cut bouquets. Use edible flowers, which have a sweet floral flavor, for baked goods and lavender lemonade, or serve with berries and citrus. Deer-resistant.

Roma Tomato

Prized for its use in tomato paste and sauces, Roma produces a large harvest of thick-walled, meaty, bright red, egg-shaped tomatoes about 3 Inches Long and with few seeds. This tomato is not juicy. This is not a slicing tomato. Instead, the flesh is thick and drier so that it will cook down into a thick sauce. Cooking intensifies flavor, too. If you can tomatoes, make your own spaghetti sauce, or like to chop a tomato into an omelet, this is a great choice. It's not too juicy in the pan compared to slicing tomatoes. The fruit freezes well for later cooking, too. The compact, determinate vines are resistant to verticillium wilt (V) and fusarium wilt (F) and widely adapted throughout the US. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Dill

Sometimes known as the "fish herb" because it's such a delicious complement to fish, dill is used in many dishes, especially dips, soups, vinegars, and salads. Fernleaf is an improved, more compact variety of ordinary dill. A 1992 All-America Selections winner, this variety of dill continues to be a favorite for its garden performance and the fact that it offers a lot of foliage. It is also slower to set seed than ordinary dill varieties, which means that you can harvest foliage longer. As the flowers do appear, you can harvest the dill seed for making dill pickles or other dishes calling for dill seed. Dill leaves or seeds are used in the cooking of many cultures around the world.

2-pack starter plants

19.3 fl oz pot volume

AAS winner

Shishito Pepper

Grow the pepper that’s long been prized by restaurants and is a favorite among chefs. Shishito is a Japanese sweet pepper that produces handfuls of finger-long fruits. Usually used when green (though also fine to eat when red), the peppers are thin-walled, making them ideal for tempura and stir fries. On this side of the Pacific, it’s wildly popular as an appetizer—tossed with oil, then char-grilled or pan-seared to a blackened, blistered state and salted. Plants are compact and perfect for containers. Use one plant per 18-inch pot.

Early Girl Tomato

When gardeners talk about the "first" tomatoes, Early Girl is always there. This may be the most all-round popular hybrid to satisfy that itch for the first fresh tomato of the season. Use them for slicing on a place, into a salad, or on a sandwich. This a proven all-round early hybrid. Use it to jump start your harvest. Early Girl bears lots of fruit for early harvest, but because the vines are indeterminate, they continue producing through summer. In our Alabama test garden, where conditions are ideal and the growing season is long, we harvest an average of 300 tomatoes from each Early Girl plant! Many gardeners plant it again late in the summer so that it will produce a huge fresh crop of "fall tomatoes" quickly before frost.Resistant to verticillium wilt (V) and fusarium wilt races 1 and 2 (F).

Yellow Bell Pepper

Yellow, thick-walled, sweet fruits add appetizing color and vitamins to fresh salads, and are superb for stuffing as well as fresh use. Plants can get quite large, so be prepared to support them, especially when carrying lots of fruit. Ripens green to yellow.

Big Beef Tomato

For years gardeners wanted a large, beefsteak-type tomato that was delicious, early to bear, and highly disease resistant. Finally in 1994 those wishes came true with Big Beef. The large fruit has old-time tomato flavor and the vines are resistant to many of the problems that can discourage gardeners. The fruit is borne on vigorous, indeterminate vines from summer until frost. Compared to other beefsteak types, Big Beef is early and will set fruit reliably even in cool, wet weather. We harvest dozens of tomatoes from each plant in our Alabama test garden, where the harvest season lasts two full months and the growing conditions are very good. It grows well throughout the country, earning it an All America Selections designation in 1994; it has since grown to be a national favorite. Vines grow long, so give the plant the support of a tall cage or stake.Resistant to verticillium wilt (V), fusarium wilt (F) races 1 and 2, nematodes (N), and alternaria stem canker (ASC), gray leaf spot (St), and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV).For gardeners who enjoy plant history and interesting facts, Colen Wyatt, the breeder of this variety, was one of the most successful home garden vegetable plant breeders in the last half of the 20th century. He also bred Celebrity and Husky Gold tomatoes, which are both also AAS Winners.

2-pack starter plants

19.3 fl oz pot volume

AAS winner

Red Ghost Super Hot Pepper

You’ve probably heard of the ghost pepper, as it has made its name as one of the hottest peppers in the world. Fruits ripen from green to bright red, and have thin, wrinkled skins. This is a slow growing plant, but it can sometimes reach up to 4 feet tall. Handle these fiery chili peppers with caution: Wear gloves and long sleeves when harvesting, and don’t let cut peppers—or anything made with them—touch your skin. (Goggles are a good idea, too.) Remember, a very little goes an extremely long way with this pepper. Some Bonnie Plants varieties may not be available at your local stores, as we select and sell varieties best suited to the growing conditions in each region.

Banana Sweet Pepper

Named for its banana-like shape, this variety bears sweet, mild banana peppers that mature from yellow, to orange, and then to crimson red. Plants fruit prolifically, easily producing up to 25 to 30 pods per plant. Banana peppers are great for frying and pickling, and are an excellent choice for making pepper rings for sandwiches. Great for containers. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

German Thyme

Thyme is an easy and practical herb to grow. Highly aromatic, it enhances meat dishes, eggs, cheeses, soups, and sauces, and it is a primary component of both Bouquet Garni and Herbes de Provence. Use it to elevate the flavor of good ole' beef stew, too. This tiny-leaved thyme is among the most aromatic, more so than larger-leafed varieties. You may also hear it called winter thyme, because it is one of the most cold hardy of all the different thymes. The leaves are evergreen to semi-evergreen, depending on the how far North it is growing. In the warm, humid climates of zones 9 and 10 it may suffer in the summer; in zone 10 it is best to lower your expectations and just consider it a cool season annual. Thyme is well suited for containers because of its size and the fact that it demands perfect drainage. Give it excellent drainage in a pot and good air circulation. Because it is low-growing and has thin stems and a wiry habit, don't crowd it because vigorous neighboring plants might choke it out. Upright-growing rosemary is a good companion.

Spinach

This variety of dark green spinach has been a standout in many regions, including the North. It is slow to bolt and suitable for spring, summer, and fall planting. The full, upright plants produce high yields of large, triangular leaves that are rich in the phytonutrient lutein. Both frost and heat tolerant.

German Queen Heirloom Tomato

Heirloom. This old-fashioned beefsteak has large, sweet fruits that are lower in acid and quite meaty, making them perfect for slicing. The indeterminate vines will grow tall and bear fruit all summer long, so be sure to stake strongly or cage. One slice makes a great sandwich filling!

Habanero Hot Pepper

One of the most potent hot peppers- 100 times hotter than Jalapeño! Great for hot sauces and basting. Wrinkled, tapered little fruit turn from green to orange. Bear very well in hot weather. Grows well in containers. Tapered little fruit turn from green to orange. Bear very well in hot weather.

Lemon Thyme

A favorite of all thymes, lemon thyme is great in the garden and the kitchen. Easy to grow. Although it looks like German thyme (or English thyme), it definitely tastes and smells like lemon. Use lemon thyme in any recipe that calls for lemon, including marinades. Lemon thyme grows vigorously, so you can trim back to keep neat and compact and enjoy the trimmings! The glossy green foliage is easily sheared into a tiny hedge if you are looking to create a traditional knot garden. Evergreen in zones 8 and 9. This is a really pretty thyme that our customers brag about for its vigor and size. Lemon thyme looks great in a pot.

Garden Sage

Gardeners add the uniquely flavored leaves of common garden sage, an herbaceous perennial, to sauces, stuffings, poultry, pork, and sausage. It provides a lovely fragrance and flavor to a dish, especially when leaves are sautéed before adding. It is a good fall and winter plant in hot climates. Great for containers. Needs good drainage. Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Italian Oregano

Savor classic Italian cuisine with the flavorful leaves of this oregano. An easy-growing plant for the garden or container, Italian oregano hails from the Mediterranean region. That means it thrives with lower humidity and well-drained soil. In the garden, use this oregano as an edging plant. Plants spread when happy, rooting along the stems. Harvest leaves or stems anytime during the growing season. Flavor is most intense just before plants flower. Trim plants often to keep flower formation at bay.

Tabasco Hot Pepper

Heirloom. This hot pepper is used to make the famous Tabasco® Sauce. Peppers mature from yellow-green to orange to red and have a unique, smoky flavor that contributes to Tabasco's distinctive taste. While adapted to all areas of the US, plants produce continuously and will therefore produce the most peppers in the South and Southwest, where the growing season is longest. In frost-free areas, plants can live for several years. Easy to grow, the compact Tabasco is also a good choice for containers.

Serrano Pepper

This variety is a vigorous bearer of hot, pungent, candle-shaped fruits that mature from green to bright red. Plants do well in most climates and are especially well adapted to hot, humid areas. This pepper is growing in popularity for pickling and salsa, and is the pepper of choice for making pico de gallo.Organic varieties are only available at retailers.

Black Beauty Eggplant

Eggplant parmesan, ratatouille, baba ghanoush, or simply grilled as a “burger,” you’ll love creating your favorite dishes with Black Beauty eggplant. The gorgeous, delicious, purple-black fruit not only stars in many fabulous recipes, it’s so easy to grow at home for the freshest flavor. Plants produce pretty, prolific harvests in warm weather—keep them well-watered and harvest often. Pick the fruit before the glossy, dark skin begins to fade. (The color and glossiness of the eggplant determine the best time to harvest, rather than the fruit’s size.) Grows beautifully in garden beds or containers. Add a cage to your eggplant to help support stems when heavy with fruit. Place in full sun, and feed regularly. Matures in 80 days.

Peppermint Mint

Many herbs are easy to grow, and this is definitely true for peppermint. Square stems tend to run rampantly over — and under — soil. In small garden spaces, it's best to tuck peppermint into a pot to curtail its wandering ways. Peppermint thrives alongside water gardens or in damp spots in the yard, but will also survive in drier soil. Lushest growth occurs in moist soil in partial shade. Crush fresh leaves into water for a refreshing beverage, or add to iced tea. You can also dry leaves for flavoring dishes or beverages and making desserts like meringues, cookies, or cakes. Pick leaves frequently. Plants open lavender blooms in late summer. Tolerates light frost.

Greek Oregano

Enjoy oregano aroma and flavor on pizza, in egg dishes, and in tomato sauces. Native to the Mediterranean region, this plant prefers climates with lower humidity, so keep the foliage and roots away from too much moisture. Give it good air circulation. For that reason, it is perfectly suited for a container. In the ground it makes a ground-cover-like mat. Harvest anytime, but especially as the stems begin to get tall and are getting ready to flower -- that is when the leaves are the most flavorful. Cut it back several times during the growing season to harvest the leaves from the stems.

Spearmint Mint

Spearmint has strong flavor and fragrance that is released with simple bruising. It's the best mint variety for hot and cold drinks. Toss bruised leaves into ice water for a refreshing summer drink or add to iced tea. Spearmint is favored for flavoring beverages such as mojito. Also know as Yerba Buena. Spreading plant is great for containers. Tolerates light frost.

English Thyme

English thyme is a low-growing plant with fragrant leaves. This herb goes well with just about everything. Add it (fresh or dried) to blended herb mixtures, or use in soups, sauces, beans, meat dishes, and more. It’s also a great addition to potpourri or homemade soap. But thyme isn’t just useful inside the house, as it also makes a wonderfully aromatic ground cover or border.

Ichiban Eggplant

Pretty, productive, and delicious—Ichiban-type Japanese eggplant meets all of your garden goals! The slim, 10-inch-long, deep purple fruit tastes sweet and mild, making it a perfect choice for grilling and roasting. Chefs love creating culinary treats with this beauty, so imagine how scrumptious your meals will taste when you harvest this lovely homegrown, thin-skinned eggplant just hours before dinner. A hybrid variety, it prefers warm weather but grows well in cooler climates, too, with harvests lasting into fall. Grows beautifully in garden beds or containers. Add a cage to your eggplant to help support stems when heavy with fruit. Place in full sun, and feed regularly. Matures in 50 to 60 days.

Big Boy Tomato

The name, Big Boy, is easy to remember and so is the flavor. This is a big, sandwich-type slicer with smooth, bright red fruit and a flavor that everybody likes. It bears heavily in mid-season, yet the indeterminate vines continue fruiting (though not as heavily) until frost. Plants in our Alabama test garden, where conditions are excellent, have yielded 100 tomatoes each through a 10-week harvest season. Long vines need staking, or grow the plant in a tall cage. Resistant to cracking.

Banana Hot Pepper

If you like a hint of heat with your peppers, give hot banana pepper a try. The 6-inch-long, banana-shaped fruit provides a bit of a kick—without frightening less-adventurous eaters. Pickled, fried, or roasted, it adds terrific flavor to your favorite dishes. Plus, the fruit creates a pretty pop of color in the garden and on the plate, maturing from pale green to yellow to orange to red. You’ll appreciate its resilience in summer, too, as the plant produces well even in hot weather. Performs well in containers. Hybrid. Add a cage or stake to your pepper when planting to support stems heavy with fruit. Place in full sun, and feed regularly. Be sure to label plants if you’re also growing sweet banana peppers. Scoville heat units: 5,000 to 10,000. Matures in 75 days.

Cayenne Pepper

Light: Full sun. Fruit size: 5 to 6 inches. Matures: 70 to 75 days. Plant spacing: 12 to 18 inches apart. Plant size: 18 to 24 inches tall. Scoville heat units: 30,000 to 50,000 (hot). This very hot pepper is the prime ingredient in Cayenne pepper, which is made when the dried peppers are ground into powder. This is also the favored spice of Creole and Cajun cuisine used to give gumbo and crayfish dishes their punch. Thin-walled, skinny, wrinkled fruits are 5 to 6 Inches long and very hot. However, they will not be hot when small. Wait until they get at least 5 or 6 Inches long to pick hot ones. They can be substituted for most dishes calling for Serrano, Jalapeno, or Habanero peppers. Easy to grow and tolerant of hot, humid weather, Cayenne will produce peppers all summer. These skinny peppers are also called chili or finger peppers. Great for containers. Some Bonnie Plants varieties may not be available at your local stores, as we select and sell varieties best suited to the growing conditions in each region.

Lieutenant Broccoli

Well adapted to warm weather, these plants form smooth, dark green heads on medium-sized stems with few side shoots. Heads offer classic flavor and all the vitamins and protein broccoli is known for. Water plants consistently for best yields, especially as temperatures climb. If you like Packman, you’ll like Lieutenant Broccoli.

Purple Basil

These purple basil leaves have a beautiful, coppery glow and clove-like, slightly spicy flavor. Use them in salads or preserved in oils and vinegars. A pot of purple basil provides surprisingly, striking color in the garden.

Tami G Grape Tomato

Gardeners who have grown Tami G grape tomatoes appreciate her hybrid qualities, both in the garden and at the table. These firm, sweet, dark-red grape tomatoes grow 1 1/4 inch long x 3/4 inch wide, perfect for a healthy snack or salad. Tami G grape tomatoes grow into a vigorous vine that can reach 8 to 9 feet tall in a season, easily growing over the top of the cage and back down again. Because this variety is disease resistant, you will enjoy an extended harvest. This makes an absolutely beautiful branch of grape tomatoes that you can lay out on a table and let folks pick their own from the stem (like grapes). It's a crowd pleaser. Resistant to fusarium wilt (F), alterneria stem canker (ASC), gray leaf spot (St), and bacterial spec race 0.

Catnip

Your favorite feline will purr-fectly adore fresh catnip. Add it to your garden bed or plant it in a container for inside kitties, and watch them go wild! A member of the mint family, catnip creates a comical response in most cats, with lots of purring, rubbing, and rolling on the plant. This easy-to-grow, hardy herb produces pretty clusters of white flowers with purple dots in the summer, adding beauty to your garden. And, if your feline friend will share, catnip leaves make a lovely tea for humans. Dry the leaves to create homemade cat toys stuffed with catnip for more cat antics! Plant in full sun to part shade. Perennial (zones 4 to 10).

Chamomile

Need a little help relaxing? Add chamomile to the garden, and brew a cup of homegrown, soothing chamomile tea to unwind before bed. While best known for use in tea, the pretty, edible flowers also add a slightly sweet flavor to dishes, desserts, and drinks. Chamomile looks lovely and makes a great companion plant in vegetable gardens, attracting beneficial insects, like pollinators and predatory insects that feed on pests, to boost harvests and keep veggies healthy. Enjoy the large shows of pretty, petite, daisy-like flowers—they look great in bouquets, too. Plant in full sun to partial shade. Annual. Matures in 60 to 65 days.