Easy to grow herbs

• Easy herbs to grow and maintain
  
• Tasty culinary herbs
• Can be grown in the ground or containers
• Harvest regularly through the growing season

A perfect start to your herb collection – these easy to grow culinary herbs will survive outside all year round, giving lots of delicious leaves through the spring and summer for flavouring, cooking and salads.  Choose from the following

Chives – cut and come leaves through the summer, pretty flowers that can be broken into florets and added to salads.

Parsley – harvest leaves throughout the year, parsley will flower and seed in its second year.

Oregano – spicy flavour for pasta and pizzas, spreads gradually to form a clump.

Garlic chives – also called Chinese chives, cut and come again flat garlic flavoured leaves, edible white flowers in late summer.

Lemon balm – aromatic lemon flavoured leaves for teas, ice cream, cakes and puddings, spreads to form a clump, loved by bees.

Rosemary – needs a sunny spot, stays green all year round, keep pinching out tip growth for use in the kitchen and to keep bushy.

Spearmint – common mint, a vigorous grower that spreads in the garden and needs plenty of feed if in a container.

Moroccan mint – use like common mint, but also makes a strong refreshing tea, spreads like common mint.

Welsh onion – cut and come again onion flavoured leaves, gradually spreads in to a clump, white flowers in summer.

Marjoram - gold tip – tasty green leaves with a splash of gold, forms a clump over the years, loved by bees use in pasta, pizza, soups and sauces.

Plant care

These herb plants are perennials, meaning they live for several years. They will survive outside all year round. Most of them will die down underground for the winter months and then reappear the following spring. They can be planted in the garden and in pots in a place that receives at least half a day of direct sunshine.

Growing in pots

Herbs grown in pots will need a general-purpose liquid feed once a week as they have no access to minerals unlike their garden grown counterparts. Mint is better grown in a pot on its own otherwise its prolific roots will take over the whole pot and eventually kill the other herbs. All the others can be varieties can grow together happily and of these rosemary, as an evergreen perennial, will be the slowest grower so be patient.

It is better to pot herbs on into pots that are about four centimetres bigger than the ones they arrive in, then wait for them to root into the new compost before potting on again. This keeps the root ball warmer meaning the roots will grow more quickly and stops them being surrounded by lots of wet compost that can potentially cause them to rot. This is especially important in spring and autumn when plants are growing more slowly.