Have you ever bought a pot of fresh herbs, such as basil, parsley, coriander or rosemary from your supermarket only to be frustrated when – despite all the care you lavish on it – it’s dead within a couple of weeks?
Fear not, you might have bought your last pot of fresh herbs because I’ve figured out the answer.
Each pot of fresh herbs can contain as many as ten separate plants. this makes the pot attractive at the point of sale, but so many plants struggling for the limited nutrients in the small pot means that they quickly starve to death.
So the simple solution is to remove the plants from their pot and drop them gently on your potting board so that the individual roots separate out.
Then it’s just a matter of repotting them in their own individual pots, in good quality peat-free compost. Water well, so that the compost is sucked down bringing it into close contact with the roots and you’ll end up with several thriving plants, like I have here.
Pinch the tops of the plants out to encourage them to bush out. If you are left with a decent length of stem from any leggy plants, then simply put them into some water (empty spice jars are ideal) after dipping them into hormone rooting gel. Within a few weeks, they will be showing roots and you can pot them up in compost and add them to the rest of your collection.
Then you can think about developing a nice side hustle with a stall at your local farmer’s market!