Stop buying herbs

3 ways you can grow as many as you need

If you’re not already cooking with herbs, you’re missing out. Throwing some rosemary on your roast potatoes, some chives in your scrambled eggs, and some coriander on your tacos is the quickest way to level up your cooking.

I don’t know why people don’t use herbs - maybe they just didn’t have them growing up - but I suspect part of the reason is the cost. Every time you buy supermarket herbs you’re putting down $4 or $5 to buy something that you’ll only use for one meal and then the rest sits in your fridge and goes limp. One solution is dried herbs, and they’re great, but they just don’t compare to fresh when it comes to flavour. So keep using herbs, but please, for your own sake, stop buying them. 

Free herbs for life - 3 methods

Herbs are the easiest thing to grow at home. They take up next to no space, they’re super easy to look after, and you can keep taking from them every time you cook and they’ll keep providing. 

Here are three ways you can start growing your own herbs (from most to least effort/time), or even just make your store bought ones go a bit further.

1. Grow them from seed

This takes a while and but is the most cost-effective way and, for me, comes with a sense of personal satisfaction. I like watching a seed sprout; it’s a nice little surprise after you spend a few days anxiously waiting to see if anything’s happened. And although it takes a while, it couldn’t be easier. 

Go to a hardware or gardening store, by a pot and some potting mix and stick it on a windowsill. Plant your seeds, keep the soil moist, and that’s about it! Within a week or so you’ll have something like my sage sprout. If you’re going to grow from seed, here’s a tip - soak your seeds in water for 8-12 hours before you plant them, it’ll speed up germination and get you growing sooner.

2. Buy seedlings

Repeat the above steps re: pot and potting mix but instead of buying seeds, buy seedlings. It’s a nice headstart and a good option if you don’t want to wait weeks to get those scrumptious fresh herbs. This is a rosemary bush I got as a seedling from Bunnings. I think it was about $4 (about what you’d pay for that little plastic container of rosemary at the supermarket - you know, the ones where you use two sprigs then throw the rest out?) and I’ve been using it for months now. It’s small and growing pretty slowly, but I use it regularly and it has so much more flavour than the dry equivalent.

3. Buy it from the supermarket… but be smart about it

You’ve just put your burrata onto a bed of fresh tomatoes and thoughtfully drizzled on some olive oil and pesto, when you realise that you haven’t done either of the first two options here and so, you have no basil and can’t afford to wait for a seed to grow. A true dilemma. 

Go to the supermarket but don’t buy the cut basil in the little plastic container, get the living basil plant that they sell for pretty much the same price. Now, I know what you’re thinking. These supermarket plants always die in 2 days. But it’s because you’re not taking care of them properly. 

When you get your new basil plant home (and after you’ve eaten the amazing burrata) the first thing you should do is pull out half the basil. The reason the basil plants look so enticing and bushy at the supermarket is because it’s not one basil plant - they’ve crammed a dozen in there to make it look good. This is also why they die quickly. They’ve got no space, and the mix that they’re planted in has no nutrients, so they don’t have food.

Keeping these plants alive is as simple as pulling out most of them, then adding a little bit of fertiliser and watering regularly. Ideally you’d actually replant them in a bigger pot but we’re going for the low effort approach. Here’s my basil, bought from Woolworths about a month ago and still happily living in the pot it came in.

I’m getting another windowsill box soon so I plan to use a cutting to grow a new plant. If you want to do this, just cut a piece of the stem directly above some of the leaves where the new shoot starts. Put your cutting in a small container of water and let the roots grow over the next couple of weeks. When you’ve got a good root bunch, you can plant it directly into a pot with a good quality potting mix. Simple as that, you’ve got infinite herbs. 

The best part is that this method will work with most herbs, not just basil, and you can do it as many times as you like. So, you really are wasting your money every time you buy a bunch of supermarket herbs. Stop buying, start growing. If you’ve got any other suggestions for good windowsill growers, leave a comment and let me know!