How To Harvest Herbs The Easy Way

Growing your herbs indoors comes with a plethora of advantages, the main examples being the lack of pests nibbling at your greenery and not having to weed your plants (unless it’s in a windowsill by the garden and you happen to be super unlucky). Being able to to take them from the cradle to the grave during cooking gives you that unique taste which will keep people coming back for more.

Herbs are generally really easy to take care of any won’t require much help from you, but as with anything gardening-related, there are a few things you’ll need to take care of. These are:

1. Know what you are growing!

I just picked up a wonderful peppermint growing kit which will hopefully sprout any day now. The thing is though, mint is a notoriously invasive grower and if left with the rest of my kitchen garden, I’d be left with nothing else. Because of this I’m keeping it in my bedroom window and will probably use it exclusively for brewing tea and chewing before I go out (although I’ll admit, there is little I’d cook with mint anyway, but you get the idea).

Be sure to research whatever it is you’re growing and if you can’t find enough, you’re welcome to email me and I’ll help you as best I can.

2. Don’t go crazy

Although making a huge batch of pesto sauce sounds fantastic in principle, your basil plant(s) will sob delicious tears if you take too much in one go. As a rule of thumb, I try not to take over one third of the plant at a time so I don’t risk over-stressing it. This is especially important at this time of year if your plants will be too big to come indoors, you’ll want them to have a full head of developed leaves rather than a few new ones which won’t survive the chill.

With this said, annuals won’t mind too much at this point, it’s more the perennials you need to be careful around.

3. Open flowers usually = bad news

Much like the coriander I showed you, plants with open flowers tend to have a less endearing taste to them, so it’s best to steer clear. I’d say the best time is when you have the buds but they’re yet to open, this seems be be when the flavour peaks, especially with mint and chamomile.

From tea to scented oils and even cold cures, herbs are pretty versatile and can give you some gorgeous flowers which can leave your conservatory or bathroom (personally, I wouldn’t eat bathroom herbs, they’re purely for decoration) smelling sweet throughout the whole year.