Herbs are the highest-value crop most gardens can grow: a few plants replace an endless procession of plastic supermarket pouches, and fresh-picked flavour is simply better. The catch is that "herbs" are not one crop. A rosemary and a parsley plant want almost opposite conditions, and treating them the same is why so many herb patches end up half thriving and half dead.
Two tribes: know which herb wants what
Nearly every common kitchen herb falls into one of two camps, and getting this single distinction right solves most herb-growing problems.
- Mediterranean drainage-lovers — rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano — evolved on sun-baked, stony hillsides. They want full sun, poor-to-moderate soil, and above all sharp drainage. Winter wet kills far more of them in Britain than cold does.
- Moisture-lovers — parsley, chives, coriander, and (with caveats) basil — want richer soil that stays reliably damp, and tolerate or even appreciate a little shade in high summer.
Plant the two tribes in separate spots — a hot dry bed or gritty pots for the first, a moister, richer bed or generous containers for the second — and both will flourish.
The Mediterranean crew
Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus, hardiness H4) makes a long-lived evergreen shrub. Give it full sun and free-draining soil; in heavy clay it is far safer in a large pot of gritty compost. Trim after flowering in late spring to keep it bushy — old, woody plants do not regrow from hard pruning into bare wood.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris, H5) is fully hardy but hates winter wet; it thrives in gravel, between paving, or in shallow terracotta pans. Clip after its early-summer flowering to stop it going leggy.
Sage (Salvia officinalis, H5) forms a low evergreen bush. Pick regularly, give it a light trim in April, and expect to replace plants every four or five years as they get woody. Purple and variegated forms are slightly less vigorous but just as usable.
Oregano (Origanum vulgare, H6) is a tough hardy perennial that dies down in winter and returns in spring. Flavour is strongest in a hot, dry spot. Its flowers are among the best bee plants in the garden, so let some bloom.
None of these needs feeding; rich living produces lush, weak growth with less flavour. Water new plants through their first summer, then largely leave them alone.
The moisture-lovers
Parsley (Petroselinum crispum, H5) is a biennial grown as an annual: it gives leaves in year one, then flowers and dies in year two. Sow in April and again in July for winter picking. It germinates slowly — two to four weeks — so mark the row and keep it moist. Flat-leaved parsley generally has the better flavour; curly is hardier through winter.
Chives (Allium schoenoprasum, H7) are the easiest herb on this list: a fully hardy perennial clump that regrows from every cutting. Shear a clump to 3cm and it refills within weeks. Divide congested clumps in March or September. The pink flowers are edible and pretty in salads.
Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) deserves honesty: it bolts. Warm weather, dry roots or transplant shock send it straight to flower and seed, often within weeks, and no variety labelled "slow-bolt" fully escapes this. The realistic approach is to treat it as a cut-and-come-again leaf crop: sow direct (it resents transplanting), little and often — a short row every three weeks from April to August — in a spot with afternoon shade, and keep it moist. When it bolts anyway, let it: the seeds are coriander spice, worth harvesting in their own right.
Basil (Ocimum basilicum, H1C) is a tender plant that resents British summers as much as British winters. Below about 10°C it sulks; cold wet nights blacken it. Outdoors it only reliably succeeds in July and August in a hot sheltered spot. It is far happier on a sunny kitchen windowsill or in a greenhouse: sow in April in warmth, pot on, water in the morning and sparingly, and pinch out shoot tips constantly to keep plants bushy and delay flowering.
Mint: always, always in a pot
Mint (Mentha spicata and relatives, H6–H7) is vigorous, useful and completely without manners. Planted in open ground it spreads by underground runners and will colonise a bed within a couple of seasons, threading itself through the roots of everything else. Grow it in a pot — a proper pot standing on paving, not a pot sunk into the border, since runners escape over the rim and through drainage holes. It is greedy and quickly exhausts its compost, so tip the plant out each March, chop off a fresh chunk of runner, and replant it in new compost. Keep different mints in separate pots or their flavours degrade to a general muddle.
Annual or perennial: planning the patch
| Herb | Lifespan | Buy or sow? |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemary, sage, thyme | Perennial shrub (years) | Buy one plant; cuttings later if you want more |
| Oregano, chives, mint | Hardy perennial (dies down, returns) | Buy once or divide a friend's clump |
| Parsley | Biennial, grown as annual | Sow twice a year |
| Coriander, basil | Annual | Sow repeatedly (coriander) or each April (basil) |
The practical upshot: the perennials are a one-off purchase that will anchor the herb patch for years, so buy decent plants in spring and position them thoughtfully. Budget your ongoing effort for the annuals, which is mostly a matter of remembering to re-sow. One supermarket pot of "living herbs" is worth a mention here: basil pots can be split into several seedling clumps and potted on, which is the cheapest basil plants you will ever buy, though the overcrowded pot as sold rarely survives long on its own.
Harvesting so plants keep producing
How you pick determines how much you get.
- Pick tips, not single leaves. On basil, mint and oregano, pinch out the top of a shoot just above a pair of leaves; two new shoots grow from below the cut and the plant gets bushier. Stripping single leaves from a stem leaves you with a bare stick.
- Cut chives and parsley from the outside or shear a section right down; new growth comes from the base.
- Take no more than a third of any plant at once, and go gently on shrubby herbs from October to March when they cannot regrow.
- Delay flowering on leaf herbs by pinching out flower buds the moment you see them — flavour declines once a plant commits to flowering. (Ignore this for oregano and chives, whose flowers earn their keep.)
- Pick in the morning for the best concentration of aromatic oils, especially if you are harvesting quantities to preserve.
Drying and freezing the surplus
Match the method to the herb. The robust, low-moisture Mediterranean herbs dry well: tie small bunches of rosemary, thyme, sage or oregano and hang them somewhere warm, airy and out of direct sun for a week or two, then strip the leaves into jars. Dried oregano is arguably better than fresh.
The soft, high-moisture herbs — parsley, chives, basil, coriander — turn to flavourless hay when dried. Freeze them instead: chop and pack into ice-cube trays, top up with water or olive oil, and freeze; the cubes go straight into cooking. Basil is best preserved as pesto or blitzed with oil before freezing, which keeps its colour and scent. Whole frozen leaves go limp on thawing but are fine in any cooked dish.
No garden? A windowsill will do
A bright windowsill — south- or west-facing for preference — supports a genuinely useful herb collection. The best candidates are basil (sown April to August), chives (pots can be brought in and cropped almost year-round), parsley, and coriander sown thickly and cut young as a seedling crop. Use pots at least 12–15cm across with drainage holes and saucers; tiny pots dry out and exhaust themselves in weeks. Water when the surface dries, feed monthly with a weak general liquid feed in summer, and turn pots every few days so growth stays even. Rosemary and thyme are less happy indoors long-term — light levels are too low in winter — so if you have even a doorstep or balcony, keep those two outside in the sun and bring the picking indoors instead.