Did you know that you don’t need seeds to grow your own herbs at home? All you need is access to healthy plants to take a start from. Whether they are from a friend’s garden or the grocery store, it’s simple to get started.
It doesn’t work for all herbs, but it does work for most.
Learn how to get started in this video:
Video Transcript
Well, hello! Stacey Murphy here with a quick video. You do not need seeds in order to start your own herb garden. That’s super cool, right? All you need are some healthy plants.ย
Where can you find those plants? You can go to the grocery store, and you can buy some organic rosemary, some organic sage, some organic basil. Or maybe your friend has some growing in their garden, and you cut a little bit of it. Here’s what you do with it. Like I said, you want to start with good plants, so find somebody who’s growing organically, or buy it organic at the store.ย
This works for many herbs, but it doesn’t work for all herbs. I wouldn’t do this for parsley, cilantro, and dill, but most of the other herbs, like oregano, basil, rosemary, sage, anything with a woody stem. Mint. Mint grows anywhere. It grows wild.
All you need to do is some of these plants–it’s really simple. Instead of going to a plant nursery and spending a couple bucks on a plant this size, you could just create it yourself in a couple weeks at home. What you do is you take a cutting either from an existing plant, or you take your grocery store cutting. Then you put it in some water. What you’re trying to do is grow some roots, so you basically want to make sure that the lower portion of the stem is clear from plant material. In this case, little bits of Rosemary have fallen in there. I’m going to take those out because those little bits can get kind of moldy in the water, and bad bacteria can form. We don’t want those, so we’ll pull those out of the water. Then basically, what I’m going to do is every couple days, I’m going to change out this water. Now this water, you can probably see, has some particles floating in it. It’s about time to change out this water. Now, this took a couple weeks for these roots to grow. Now that these roots have grown, you could take these and you could plant them into some potting mix. Basically, watch them and water them for a couple days, and make sure they’re doing well in the potting mix, and then transplant them outside. Or if you’re feeling like you want to go for it, you could go ahead and plant this outside.
What I would recommend doing in this case is–well, I’ll tell you why I would do potting mix first. What I would do is clear off a little bit more plant material up here, and I would plant up all the way up to here so that all of this is under the potting mix or under soil. Now, the reason I would prefer potting mix over soil is that if I were to plant this into the soil, all these roots are going to kind of be glommed together. But if I put it in potting mix first, potting mix is kind of a looser soil mix, so these roots can spread out and get a little bit more healthy before they go into a planting bed. But it can work either way, so whatever works for you.
This is a way to get your own. Now I have two rosemary bushes that can grow out of the one plant cutting that I took a couple weeks back. It’s as easy as that. You can do this, like I said, with rosemary. Basil is a really fabulous one to do this. You’ve just got to make sure you change out the water very regularly because basil has a softer stem sometimes. Oregano, sage, thyme, mint. What are some of the other herbs out there that you want to try? Post in the comments below. Most of them are going to work. The ones that are not going to work are the more annual ones, the ones that tend to bolt. Things like parsley, cilantro, and dill, and those are all in the same family. Those are the types of herbs that basically will turn to seed more quickly. These guys, they may flower, but they’re like evergreens. They just keep growing back again and again, and that’s why these work really well as cuttings.
All right. That’s it for this video. Try it out for yourself. Post below what other plants you’ve done this with. I’ve heard people do this with good tomato plants, too. You might choose to do this with some of your vegetables as well. All right. Take care. Love you guys, and see you in the next video.
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Last Summer I had success with Basel ..got cuttings from the ones baught in store.
This time I’d like to try Rosemary and Mint for my Winter Garden:-)
what liquid fertilizer is recommended to start these plants
indoors
How about tarragon?
Iโll give the rosemary another try from the grocery store cuttings, but Iโve had success with the annual coriander from the store so might try the cilantro as well. Nice video, very helpful
In response to Colleen,
If you are propagating herbs indoors, whether to get them ready for the Spring and Summer or simply to have them available year round, there are a few accessible ways of doing this. For starters, if you are interested, we do have a microcourse which focuses on cultivation in containers. Otherwise, often it is best over the winter months to provide a grow light to supplement the lacking sunlight, often even if growing in a windowsill, but windowsill herb gardens can also be healthy without synthetic light. It is usually best to use a fairly well draining soil for indoor plants to prevent stagnant water from facilitating pests or disease, and the containers can be anything from purchased rolling garden beds to food-safe plastic buckets with drainage holes added. Liquid fertilizers can be a great way to produce healthy herbs in a small amount of soil.
Thanks for being in our community! I hope this was helpful!
In response to Tricia Hallam,
With rosemary, thyme, and oregano, since they are perennial plants, it is recommended to take “softwood cuttings”. These young, fresh sections of the plant are actively growing in the Spring and into some Summer months, so mid Spring is often ideal for taking cuttings from these herbs! Basil is best to try to split during the summer when it is most full of life!
Quite appreciate you being here! I hope this helps!
In response to Steve Andrews,
the best time of year varies just slightly between herb species, but generally speaking most herbs are best for this while they are actively growing – especially during the early to mid Spring months. For herbs like rosemary, it is recommended to take “softwood” cuttings from shoots that are still young and full of life. These sections have more active nodes which can produce roots. Thyme essentially comes with the same recommendations as rosemary – softwood cuttings.
Please reach out if we can help any further! We appreciate you engaging in our community!
In response to Tatyana,
According to the book Plant Propagation from the American Horticultural Society, the best way to create more starts from an established lavender plant is the “mound” technique. This is a technique where, in the Spring, soil mixed with peat and sand is mounded up around the root base, burying the lower portion of the branches. By late Summer or Fall, new roots should be coming from the buried portion of branches. These sections can then be cut and replanted!
If you aren’t finding it on your own, feel free to reach out again if more information would be helpful on this topic!
I love the video. I learn a lot from you. Thanks.
What about planting herbs for indoors over the colder weather/winter? Iโm in Canada.
Thanks for sharing this tip. It can save a lot of money vs. buying a dozen plants at the nursery.
But …
Is there a certain time of year that this works better (spring vs. fall, actively growing vs. going dormant)? Do you need a certain part of the rosemary plant (tip vs. woody stem)?
I’ve done this with mixed success on oregano (easy- in the mint family), rosemary (succeeded one time, failed another), and thyme (failed), so I need to find out what I’m doing wrong.
Is there a certain time of year that this works better (spring vs. fall, actively growing vs. going dormant)? Do you need a certain part of the rosemary plant (tip vs. woody stem)? — I’ve done this with mixed success on oregano (easy- in the mint family), rosemary (succeeded one time, failed another), and thyme (failed), so I need to find out what I’m doing wrong.
basil thyme parsley rosemary that is just for a start ๐
Thank you Stacey, for explaining all the different steps.
I’ll have fun next year!
Tried it this year for the first time with a very hardy lavender plant (OK for minus 30C ). It worked . However, I put it straight in regular triple mix. Lets see if it survives the winter here in Toronto, Canada.
Thanks for your generosity!
Rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano.
Is it best to do this early in season before plant flowers?
Bilberry would be an asset in my kitchen/medicinal garden. Particularly since it is a relatively small bush to squeeze into a small garden.
But I also like the idea of growing useful red clover. I donโt have grassy spaces to grow it as a cover crop and my vegetable garden beds are rarely empty but red clover could make pathways interesting
Great idea to use clippings off various herb plants to grow new herb plants. Such as oregano, mint, etc. thanks for the tip.
Hello,
How about lavender?
Thanks
Excellent information
I’ll try basil.
Try Thyme.
I just use seeds from the 3 you mentioned.