A couple of times I have bought growing herbs in pots like Basil ,Parsley or Coriander etc from supermarkets and while they are fine and very healthy when you buy them they never survive more than a few days . I'm assuming that they are forced to get to the "selling" stage but has anyone ever bought these and got them to last ?
oh yes. sunlight warmth and water are required though.
you can repot them if you like.
Any tips re type of compost etc . Sunlight and warmth might need to wait for a few weeks tho!
Try asking the question on "uk.rec.gardening", you will probably get a better response there, In my limited experience your best approach is to repot them as soon as you get home, keep them indoors over night, put them out on sunny days until they are acclimatised to their new situation. Good luck Don
Thx for the reply ....I forgot that NG was there so I have posted there now .
Yes. My partner does that quite well. Typically we might buy a medium basil, re-pot straightaway (John Innes of some number is fine), and leave for a week or two. By then they are as large as a more expensive large pots and usually much greener and stronger. We currently have two pots of basil on the kitchen window sill (or is that window board?) that have been there for months.
Coriander seems the most fussy - got to get the watering spot on.
We have a small, inexpensive plastic sheet 'greenhouse' which is great to use between frosty and hot weather.
Yes, growing them is the way to go. With most of them they can be put into troughs on a windowsill in ordinary compost with slow release plantfood. I've noticed the rootballs on these are seriously undersized, and frequent watering is needed until they get established.
Basil really flourished in direct sunlight, mints do ok with partial direct sun, coriander seems to be temperamental, and thyme doesnt tolerate rootball disturbance, so dont split it and be gentle with the rootball.
Doing this produces many times more herb than you could harvest off the weedy things that supermarket herb plants are. I tried experimenting with perennialising annuals too, it takes electric lighting to succeed.
NT
Parsley, basil and thyme grow easily if transplanted outdoors in summer, and then they come up every year...oregano and mint too, but you have to keep an eye on these as they have a tendency towards world domination and will take over your garden. Corriander is a pain in the arse as its a fussy bastard and hates too much water, not enough water, too hot, too cold, too light, too dark, too windy, not windy enough etc etc, and it will drop dead if someone looks at it funny. You really need a greenhouse for corriander, but even then the results make it not worth bothering with.
There's dozens of herbs that do well in our climate, ask in uk.rec.gardening - they will probably have a list of indoor and outdoor herbs you can try.
Mostly I think they just dry out too quickly in small pots on a window sill. I have a few growing outside, and they all seem to prefer shade and shelter
Yes, I have a rosemary shrub and some chives outdoors, both of which came from Waitrose originally.
I repotted them and had them indoors for a couple of years. However, I would occasionally forget to water them, and the rosemary managed to catch red spider from another plant, and I can't spray it if I'm going to eat it, so I put it outside over a very cold winter which killed the red spider. It's been outside ever since, and both have done better outside than they did indoors, although the chives die back over winter, obviously.
I don't remember exactly how I got them started, but I think I repotted them. Wasn't sure if there were actually any nutriants in the original pots, or might have relied on hydoponics to feed them. The rosemary perked up quite a lot with a little baby-bio, before the repotting. I've had to repot it again since, but that was partly because it has outgrown the original repotting and had become root bound.
Chives will proabbly survive if you repot them. Coriander doesn't do so well, but get a bag of seeds instead and have a go yourself. Goes to seed quite quickly though.
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