Hine Herbary

That’s right! We are already planting herbs for the spring. About two weeks ago, we had a “fool’s spring” and it reached close to 60 degrees outside. It was 80 degrees in the greenhouse! We took advantage of the nice day and got the greenhouse in order. We picked out which herbs were safe to start now and then started planting. Looking back at last year, we started planting on February 10th.

We saw our first sprouts just two days later. It’s only been two weeks and today, some of the herbs are already half an inch tall. Herbs are slow growers and require heat and lots of light (and patience). We’ll be starting flowers and vegetables in March.

We also sold seeds at the market last year and they were a big hit with customers early in the season! We’ve already been packing seeds so that we will have a nice assortment of flower, herbs, and vegetable seeds when the market opens in April. All of our seeds are heirloom and non-GMO.

There will be some nice changes this season! We are excited to announce that we will be moving to the St. Charles Riverwalk Market which opens in mid-April and runs until the end of November. St. Charles is just 15 minutes from our house, so we are happy that we won’t have to drive as far to get to the market. St. Charles also operates from 7:30 to 1, so the market is open longer.

And we will only be at the market 3 Saturdays per month. We did every Saturday last year from start to finish and never missed a day. It proved to be too much for us. We definitely need a break and decided to give us one free weekend each month this year. We will probably still sell on Facebook Marketplace, so pick-up will be available when we are not at the market.

St. Charles is part of St. Louis County, which means there are different market rules in place (last year we were in Jefferson County). Different permits and licenses are required for food and beverage vendors within St. Louis. We researched this last year, and it’s one of the reasons we chose the Arnold Market in Jefferson County for our first year. We weren’t sure what we were going to sell once all the plants were gone, so we decided to offer dried herbs and teas. The teas were popular, but unfortunately they were not profitable for us because of the amount of time and supplies involved.

Jefferson County markets practice what is called “cottage law” which allows you to sell dried herbs, teas, and baked goods without a commercial kitchen license and food permit. Within St. Louis County, commercial kitchen licenses and food permits are required, so we will not be offering dried herbs and teas this year. We will only be focusing on live plants, herbs, and flowers, and we have come up with some fun ideas to be able to offer these for the whole season. We will also be adding succulents, cacti, and some houseplants to our assortment.

We are counting down the days to spring, and we are looking forward to another exciting year! The market opens mid-April! See you soon!