Growing Herbs from Seeds

Jo.G

Hello - hoping some of you lovely green fingered people can give a novice some help!

I'm growing herbs from seeds on my windowsill and have done before with varying degrees of success.
The basil has grown well, and within two weeks of planting the seeds the top of the pot is full of little green leaves
In previous years, I've left them to grow as they are. But often, I get small leaves or once I start cutting of the leaves to use, the plants go all weedy and die off
So, should I split the little green shoots I have into other pots to give them more space to grow? How do I manage the plants so that they grow into bigger more substantial plants?

Any help appreciated - growing the seeds seems to be the easy bit, its keeping hold of the plants to last at least through the summer that is the problem!!

Thanks.

midnightraven3

with basil, like a lot of plants
the secret to getting a nice bushy plant is to nick out the wee top leaves
leave your plant where it is, if its growing, its happy

when you want to use the basil, pinch leaves from here and there
to make it bushy, pinch out the top ones

morg_monster

I would thin the seedlings out while they are still small. If you ever buy pot basil from the supermarket, they never last that long because there are too many plants crammed in together. I reckon the same thing might be happening if you let ALL the seedlings grow to be full plants. You could transplant them, i suppose; but you would probably disturb the others that were left behind. Since the seeds are pretty cheap personally I would just pull out some seedlings while they are still small to leave at least an inch between plants (probably more actually, am just trying to remember how big a basil plant is!) and eat the seedlings or put on the compost.

Also once your basil plants are established, if you snip off a stem and put it in water it will start to root, you can then plant that up in a new pot. So really you can have virtually neverending basil from a couple of plants! Last year, from one supermarket plant that I split across a few pots, I ended up with about 20 pots on the windowsill and made some pesto at the end of the summer! They grow insanely fast on a sunny windowsill I find. Oh and make sure to pinch out the flowers when they form if you want to keep getting leaves.

Jo.G

Thanks Morg_Monster.

I have also tried the supermarket plants and they dont last long either.
I think I wll thin them out as the whole top of the pot is covered in green! Hopefully by keeping a few with more space, they will grow better and last longer. I'll try the cutting thing too if I manage to get that far!

Optimisticpair

Jo.G wrote: »

The basil has grown well, and within two weeks of planting the seeds the top of the pot is full of little green leaves
In previous years, I've left them to grow as they are. But often, I get small leaves or once I start cutting of the leaves to use, the plants go all weedy and die off
So, should I split the little green shoots I have into other pots to give them more space to grow? How do I manage the plants so that they grow into bigger more substantial plants?

Any help appreciated - growing the seeds seems to be the easy bit, its keeping hold of the plants to last at least through the summer that is the problem!!

Thanks.

They need room to grow on or they will be competing for water and food and starve each other. What you have after about 2 weeks is seedlings I would split them up 1 per little pot and when they get to 5 -7 leaves repot them again into a 10cm diameter pot. I feed my plants with a liquid feed every 2 weeks and water in between to keep them moist. Nip just the leaves off to use them when they are big enough and as has been said you get a bushier plant.

antonia1

What about corriander? I've started growing some in a window kit from Homebase but the corriander all have weak stems that don't seem to be able to hold themselves up. When I woke today they were using my poor little tomato seedlings for support. Should they be staked, moved, or have a done something totally wrong?

irishwexford

I planted a large pot of seeds and when they appear I will split them up into lots of smaller pots. I've grown most herbs with success. I put a big bag of parsley into freezer last year and am still useing it.

rosie383

I got my DIGIN seeds from BBC today. On the basil it says to do as suggested on here. ie, transplant them out to one seedling per pot. Thanks for starting this thread, I really needed it.

Chimera

Thanks for this, was wondering the same thing myself

nikki702

lots of info on growing herbs here http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/growyourown/Herbs-complete.pdf

Orange_King

Rushed home this evening and followed the advice above on splitting the Basil into smaller numbers of seedlings. Hope this is successful - in the past the Basil hasn't grown very well at all.