Start at the Door You Actually Use

The best spot for a kitchen garden is rarely the sunniest corner of the plot. It is the few metres of ground beside the door you use every day, even in February, even when it is raining sideways and you are still in your socks. Anything more than about ten paces from the back door gets forgotten, and forgotten herbs turn woody, flower and stop cropping.

Herbs suit this kind of doorstep growing perfectly. They are small, they are cut-and-come-again, and they are expensive and disappointing to buy in plastic packets from the shop. In a barn conversion with old flagstones or a gravel apron outside the kitchen, you have almost ideal conditions already. A stone or brick wall stores warmth through the day and releases it at night, giving you perhaps a fortnight of extra growth at each end of the season.

Sun and drainage are your two priorities. Thyme, rosemary, sage and oregano want both and will sulk in rich, damp ground. Parsley, chives, chervil and mint are softer characters and will tolerate a little shade and a soil that holds moisture.

Ten Herbs Worth Keeping Close

• Parsley — flat-leaved 'Giant of Italy' for cooking. It is a biennial, so sow fresh each spring rather than waiting for old plants to run to seed.
• Chives — a clump will last years. Cut hard to about 2cm and it regrows within a fortnight. The flowers are edible and worth scattering over salads.
• Mint — always in its own pot, never in open ground, or it will run through the entire bed and out the other side. Spearmint for cooking, Moroccan mint for tea.
• Thyme — drought-proof once established. Trim lightly after flowering to stop it going woody in the centre.
• Oregano — flavour improves in poor, dry ground. Pot one up in September and bring it under cover for winter picking.
• Rosemary — a woody shrub, so give it a permanent spot or a large pot. 'Prostratus' trails nicely over a low wall.
• Sage — purple and tricolour varieties are less hardy in wet cold, so keep them in pots you can move.
• Coriander — bolts fast in heat. Sow a pinch every three weeks from March to August in a shaded pot.
• Basil — a windowsill herb for most of the UK. Pinch out the flower buds the moment they appear.
• Chervil — a shade lover, sow in late summer for fresh leaves through the winter months.

Pots, Troughs and a Handful of Grit

Containers make sense by the door, where you may be growing over flagstones or gravel. Old enamel bowls, half barrels and wooden troughs all work, provided they are at least 30cm deep for parsley and chives, and deeper for rosemary and bay. Drill drainage holes if there are none, and raise pots on feet or bricks so they never sit in standing water.

Use a soil-based compost such as John Innes No. 2, or a peat-free multipurpose mixed with a third by volume of horticultural grit. That grit matters more than any feed. It keeps the compost open around the roots of Mediterranean herbs, which rot far more often from wet than from cold. A gravel mulch over the surface keeps leaves clean and makes life harder for slugs.

Feed sparingly — a weak liquid tomato feed once a fortnight through summer is plenty. Overfed herbs grow lush and flavourless, all leaf and no oil.

Keep Cutting, Keep Sowing

The commonest mistake is being too gentle. Regular picking is what makes these plants bushy and productive. Harvest parsley and chives from the outside of the clump, never taking more than a third at a time. Pinch basil above a pair of leaves to force side shoots. Snip the tips of thyme and oregano rather than cutting into old wood, which rarely regrows.

Slugs adore basil and chervil. A night patrol with a torch, or a raised trough at 60cm, will save more plants than any amount of slug pellets. Keep coriander and chervil coming by sowing small pinches in succession rather than one big row, and you will have tender leaves from spring right through to the first hard frost.

Drying and Freezing the Surplus

Harvest in mid-morning, once the dew has dried but before the sun has drawn the oils off. That is when flavour is at its peak, and it is worth being disciplined about it.

Drying suits thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, bay and mint. Tie small bunches with string and hang them in a dark, warm, airy place — an airing cupboard, or a shed with the window propped open. A dehydrator at 35–40°C works well, as does the oven on its lowest setting with the door ajar for a couple of hours. Dry until the leaves crumble and the stems snap. Strip the leaves whole, store them in sealed jars away from light, and label with the date. Whole leaves hold their flavour far better than crushed ones; aim to use them within a year.

Freezing is better for soft herbs — parsley, chives, basil, coriander, dill and chervil — which lose their texture when dried. Chop them, pack into ice cube trays, top with water or a little oil, and freeze. Tip the cubes into a bag once solid and drop them straight into stews and soups. Basil discolours if frozen wet, so blitz it with oil into a paste first. Whole sprigs frozen in a bag can be crumbled into the pot still frozen, which is a great deal easier than it sounds.

A Patch That Still Works in January

By October the door-side patch looks tired, and the temptation is to ignore it until spring. A bit of attention now pays well. Cut back the spent growth, tidy the pots and move rosemary, bay and sage against a sheltered wall where they get the best of the winter sun. Rosemary in a pot is vulnerable to frozen roots, so wrap the container in hessian or bubble wrap, or move it into an unheated greenhouse or porch.

Chives will die back and return in March. Parsley and chervil often carry on quietly right through a mild winter. Pot up a clump of chives and a parsley plant in September and bring them onto a bright windowsill, and you will have fresh cut herbs until the light finally fails.

Then, in the middle of January, a pinch from a jar or a cube from the freezer goes into a casserole and tastes unmistakably of the summer it came from. That is the whole point of a doorstep kitchen garden: not volume, but the handful you actually use, picked a few steps from the kettle.