Grow your own herbs

Having some herbs in your kitchen can be pretty handy when you’re cooking. Here’s how you can grow your own basil – it looks good and tastes even better!

What's so special about basil?

Basil is one of the easiest herbs to grow indoors and when it’s ready to harvest, it has lots of different uses. It can be:

Chopped up and added to salads
Used to garnish pizzas and pasta
Blended into sauces
Added as decoration to drinks and desserts
And lots more!

To get started, you'll need:

Basil seeds
Potting soil
Seed trays
A window planter or larger pot to transfer your seedlings into when they’re ready
Cling film

Step 1: Prepare your seeds

Choose which seeds you'd like to plant. You'll find lots of different types in your local Dobbies store
Then, fill your seed pots with soil
Sow 2-3 basil seeds in each section, make sure you plant them as deep as the instructions on your seed packet and press the soil back over to cover them
Keep the seed trays somewhere warm and make sure they stay moist – covering them with cling film helps
You should see them start to germinate in 5-7 days

Step 2: Transfer your seedlings

Once you can see your seedlings and they have one set of leaves, they’re ready to transfer into a bigger pot
Pull apart the seedlings and plant them in bigger pots, or in a window planter so that they have more room to grow
Once the plants have six sets of leaves, you can pinch off the top leaves to help the plant get more bushy

Step 3: Start picking your leaves

Pinch off the leaves where they join the stem – this helps the plant grow lots of new leaves
If you have lots of extra leaves and you don't want to waste them, chop them up and add them to ice cube trays covering each with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then pop them in the freezer so that you have your herbs to grab when you’re cooking