October 02, 2026
Herbs are forgiving plants. They will shrug off a late sowing, a dry week, a pot that should have been repotted last spring. But they do not ignore the calendar entirely, and the growers who get the best from them are the ones who do one or two small jobs at roughly the right moment instead of everything at once in a panic.
What follows is a working checklist for UK gardens, based on a typical year. The last frost in most of the country falls somewhere between late April and the end of May, and coastal, northern and upland gardens run later than that. Shift every date by a fortnight if your own garden tells you to.
February and March: Start With the Hardy Herbs
February is for the tough, slow ones. Parsley is the classic: germination is uneven and can take three weeks or more, so soak the seed overnight and sow it into modules at around 15–20°C. Chives, thyme, marjoram and oregano will also start happily on a bright windowsill now. Rosemary and sage are better from cuttings than seed — take 8–10cm heel cuttings, strip the lower leaves, and push them into gritty compost with a polythene bag over the top to hold humidity.
By March the light is doing some of the work for you. Prick out seedlings into individual pots once they have their first true leaves. Start direct sowing the herbs that resent transplanting — chervil, dill and coriander — under a cloche or a sheet of fleece. Divide congested clumps of mint and chives while new shoots are showing, and pot up the spare pieces for friends.
Leave the woody herbs alone for now. A hard cut in early spring, before growth has started, can finish off rosemary in a cold, wet March. Hold basil back until late March at the earliest, and keep it under cover.
April and May: Hardening Off and Planting Out
Anything you raised indoors needs hardening off: seven to ten days of days outside and nights back in, starting in a sheltered spot and building up. Skip it and a fortnight of soft growth can be scorched or checked by one cold night.
From mid-April, plant out the hardy perennials — thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary and mint. They want sun and sharp drainage, so work grit or horticultural sand into the planting hole and set the plant slightly proud of the soil so water runs off the crown rather than sitting in it. If you grow mint in the ground, sink the pot and all to stop the runners taking over the bed.
Tender herbs wait. French tarragon and lemon verbena should not go out until late May, and basil wants nights reliably above 10°C, which in most of the UK means the end of May or early June. Mulch while the soil is still damp from spring rain, but keep the material clear of stems and crowns.
June and July: Water, Pinch, Harvest
The main job now is repetition. Water deeply, in the morning, and less often — a proper soak every few days beats a daily sprinkle that only wets the surface. Pots need far more attention than beds, especially terracotta, which dries from the inside out.
Pinch out the growing tips of basil above a pair of leaves every couple of weeks. You get a bushier plant and a steady supply of leaves instead of one tall stem that flowers and stops. Coriander bolts in heat: sow a short row every three weeks, in partial shade if you can, and pick the leaves young. If you want mint leaves rather than flowers, cut the flowering stems back as they appear.
Pests build up fast under glass — aphids on basil, red spider mite in hot, dry corners. Better ventilation and a strong jet of water deal with most of it before it becomes a problem.
July is also cutting season. Softwood cuttings of rosemary, sage and thyme root quickly in a gritty mix and will give you replacements for anything lost to a wet winter.
August and September: Cuttings, Seed and Second Sowings
August is the quiet pivot of the year. Take semi-ripe cuttings of bay, rosemary and lemon verbena while the wood is firm but still pliable. Collect seed from dill, coriander and fennel when the heads turn brown but before they shatter, and store it somewhere cool and dry.
Sow parsley and coriander now for winter. Parsley sown in late summer overwinters well and will give you leaves through mild spells, which is more than a spring sowing managed to do by December.
In September, pot up herbs for the kitchen windowsill and divide chives and mint again if they have run out of room. Basil is an annual and will die at the first cold night, but cuttings root in a glass of water in a fortnight and will keep you supplied indoors right through the winter.
October: Bringing the Tender Herbs Under Cover
Before the first frost, move lemon verbena, bay, French tarragon and any potted rosemary into a cool, bright, frost-free place. An unheated porch, conservatory or greenhouse is ideal. A warm living room is the wrong place entirely: it weakens plants that would rather be cool and half-dormant.
Check before you move anything indoors
- Pests under the leaves and around the rim of the pot — clear them now or the whole collection gets them.
- Drainage: pot feet or crocks, so nothing stands in a saucer of water.
- Dead and yellowing leaves, removed rather than left to rot.
- Watering: cut right back. Damp roots in cool, still air rot faster than drought ever will.
- Light: the brightest shelf you have, turned a quarter turn each week so it does not lean.
November: Mulch and Winter Protection
Mulching is the November job. A 5cm layer of compost or well-rotted manure suits mint, chives, lovage and parsley, feeding the soil and keeping the worst of the wet off the roots. For Mediterranean herbs — thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano — use grit or gravel instead of anything rich. They resent winter wet far more than cold, and a collar of grit around the crown keeps the lower stems dry.
Do not cut woody herbs back now. The top growth shelters the crown from frost and rain, and you can see exactly what has died when you tidy them in spring. Leave old flower stems on oregano and thyme as well.
Pots are the vulnerable ones. Raise them on feet, group them against a south-facing wall for shelter and warmth, and wrap terracotta in bubble wrap or hessian — it cracks when it freezes through.
Making It Work in Your Garden
December and January need almost nothing from you. Ventilate the greenhouse on mild days, water sparingly and only when the compost is genuinely dry, harvest a few bay or rosemary leaves for the kitchen, wash and stack pots, and put your seed order in. Then it all begins again in February.
Treat the dates here as a frame, not a rule. A garden in Cornwall can run a month ahead of one in Aberdeenshire, and a sheltered city courtyard is warmer than open ground a mile away. Watch your own plot instead: note when the mint breaks dormancy, when the first frost blackens the nasturtiums, when the coriander bolts. Two years of those notes will beat any generic calendar, including this one.
Photo: Noemí Jiménez / Pexels
