Growing Guides

Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is one of the easiest perennials you can start from seed, and this guide walks through how to grow catnip from sowing to harvest. It is a member of the mint family that forms a bushy, silvery-green...

English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is a tough, fragrant Mediterranean shrub that hums with bees all summer and dries beautifully for tea, honey, and sachets. Growing it from seed takes patience, and germination is slow, but once it settles in it...

Garden sage (Salvia officinalis) is a hardy perennial with soft grey-green leaves and a warm, savory flavor that is classic in stuffing, sausage, and browned-butter sauces. Of the woody Mediterranean herbs, it is one of the easiest to start from...

Sweet marjoram (Origanum majorana) is oregano's gentler, sweeter cousin, and one of the friendlier woody herbs to grow from seed. It is frost-tender, so treat it as a warm-season plant in a sunny bed or pot, where its delicate, floral...

Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) is one of the quickest herbs to grow, and a single plant gives you two things: the fresh leaves you snip for salsa and tacos, and the dried seed we call coriander. The catch is timing. Cilantro...

Florence fennel (Foeniculum vulgare var. azoricum) gives you three harvests from one sowing: a crisp, anise-sweet bulb, feathery fronds to use as a herb, and aromatic seed for the spice rack. The whole trick to growing fennel is keeping it...

Chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) is a delicate, anise-scented herb, one of the four classic French fines herbes, and the quiet lift behind good eggs, fish, and spring dishes. Unlike most herbs, it actually prefers a little shade, so growing chervil is...

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are about the easiest herb a beginner can grow, and one of the most forgiving. Sow the seed once and this clump-forming perennial hands you slender, oniony leaves and edible purple flowers, then dies back and returns...

One honest thing before you buy a packet: tarragon grown from seed is always Russian tarragon (Artemisia dracunculoides), not the French kind. True French tarragon is sterile and can only be grown from cuttings, so every tarragon seed is the...