A fine pot of mint

A collection of newly-potted herbs on a sunny patio

There was a girl once who put her faithless lover’s head in a pot and grew basil from it. That’s according to Keats, anyway. Obviously she had relationship problems and no gardening writer of good repute would recommend so drastic a horticultural practice!.
All the same, growing herbs does make even the saddest and dreariest life better
You don’t have to be a New Age back-to-the-earth type to benefit from this life enhancing experience and you don’t need a lot of land either. If you live in an apartment in New York, or Sydney, or London, or Hong Kong, you can still put a bigger buzz into your life by growing at least one herb in a pot. Pot plants are good therapy and a lot less messy and troublesome than pets. Think a pot of thyme can’t love you back? You’ll never know unless you try it.
As a gardening writer who has been growing herbs for decades I actually recommend using pots and containers because this way you can better control them. Most common culinary herbs (the only type I bother to grow) are very easy to cultivate but they do have their funny little ways. Pot culture means you can give them just the right amount of sun and shade, food and water, protection from bad weather and badder insect pests.
So here are my Ten Top Tips for growing herbs in pots – trust me, you’ll find this a very life-enhancing experience.
1. Grow only those herbs you actually enjoy using to flavor your food. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and effort.
2. Choose those that suit your climate. There are few places on earth where ALL the common culinary herbs can be grown year round (unless you have a heated greenhouse). Most herbs can be grown in summer wherever you live; only in warm temperate to tropical climates can you grow most herbs in winter, though it’s possible to cultivate thyme and rosemary in a sunny spot in a heated apartment as long as the heating is never switched off!
3. Pick a sunny spot. Most herbs thrive only in full sun for at least six hours a day. A windowsill facing the sunniest aspect will do fine.
4. Plant in a good potting mix – this will nourish your herb nicely for most of its life whereas a cheap mix will become hard and claggy and either not drain well or become water-repellent.
5. Water regularly but not too much – herbs don’t like to be permanently drenched. If your plant starts dropping leaves or looking sick it needs better drainage so try re-potting. “Crocking” – using broken up pots or large pebbles or small bits of wood at the bottom of your part will improve drainage.
6. Fertilize lightly every couple of weeks with a weak solution of liquid fertilizer. Even if your potting mix already contains (according to the packet) slow-release pellets. I find this latter type of plant food is not really appropriate for herbs grown in pots, but nowadays it’s generally included in the better quality potting mixes anyway.
7. Protect potted herbs from extreme weather such as frost, hot and drying wind, hail or very heavy rain. The beauty of cultivating pot herbs is that they can be moved about to optimize growing conditions.
8. When buying, and unless growing from seed, choose plants that look fresh and healthy in the pot; avoid anything that looks too straggling and has obviously been there so long it’s starting to outgrow its container. I grow my herbs from seed but if you are buying seedlings you get better value from those in punnets of (say) four to six little plants, to be potted on, than larger single specimens in one pot.
9. If you are harvesting your herbs regularly you won’t need to cut them back – just make sure they don’t get too tall or straggly as they will lose vigour and flavor. Trim regularly for longer and better growth.
10. Don’t try hanging on to a herb past its use-by date – unlike diamonds, herbs are NOT forever! Annuals need to be replaced once they have flowered and begun to “bolt”. Perennials become straggly – repot them once a year and give them a good trim back but when they are obviously past their best, chuck ‘em out. After all, herbs are cheap!

And if there’s anything else you want to know about growing herbs, look for updates on this website or buy my lovely, cheap and very informative book on the subject at http://www.amazon.com/Herbs-Money-GardenEzi-Books-ebook/dp/B008R9JIUE