Tips: This way you can enjoy your herb plant all year round – Kassa – BNNVARA

Don’t you want to buy a new herb plant at the supermarket every few weeks? Kassa finds out how you can enjoy the plants all year round.

According to Rogier van Vugt, head of horticulture at the Hortus botanicus in Leiden, indoor herb plants have no chance of success in winter. Rogier therefore recommends placing the herb plant in your garden. “If they get much less sun, the plants also produce fewer aromas,” he explains. “So if you put them outside, the flavor also becomes stronger.”

Rogier says that when you place your herb plant in the garden, it is important to distinguish between winter-hardy herbs (parsley, mint and chives) and plants that can be grown well in the summer (basil and coriander).

“You can enjoy chives, parsley and mint for years,” says Rogier. “They must be in a place where the herb plants receive sufficient sun, nutrition and water.” Coriander and basil originally come from a warmer climate. Rogier: “You can grow those plants outside for a summer, but as soon as it gets cold they are gone.”

Do you want to enjoy your herbs in a sustainable way in the winter? Then, according to Rogier, freezing or drying some plants is best for the environment. Rogier: “When it is summer and the herb plants are at their most abundant, harvest them and put the herbs in the freezer.”

If you like to drink a nice cup of mint tea in the winter evenings, Rogier has good news. “You can dry mint very well,” he says. “If you pick the mint in the summer and let it dry, you can drink mint tea all winter long.”

According to Rogier, when growing herb plants properly, you must take into account what they need. Rogier: ”Plants cannot adapt to you, you really have to adapt to those plants. That is the key to success.”