When to Plant Your Herbs
The germination process can dictate when you plant your seeds, especially if you want your garden to be growing and blooming by a certain period. The estimated germination time of each herb is sometimes indicated on the seed packet. You can follow this estimated time and plant indoors so that you are ready to transplant by the time the frost melts, or simply sow your seeds after the frost has melted. Annual herbs do very well being planted either of these two ways.
If you want to sow your seeds indoors, start about three weeks before the coming of spring. This will allow the seeds to complete their germination process by the time spring arrives, and you can replant the seedlings into the ground. Plant your seeds into small containers, and water them daily, making sure the soil is moist (never soaking.) You can keep them near a window where sunlight can stream through, especially if they are light dependent seeds. You can also invest in grow lamps, though this can be costly and fluorescent lighting will actually do just fine when it comes to seed germination. As long as they are kept warm, and are absorbing water, they should start germinating.
After your seedlings sprout, wait till they have at least two sets of leaves before you try hardening them off. Hardening off your herb plants is a process wherein you leave your seedlings outside (once the weather is relatively warm, usually the second week of spring) for a few hours each day so they get used to outside temperatures. Since the plants were germinated indoor the entire time, they need to slowly get used to the outside climate and conditions.
A week of hardening off is more than enough for your plant. You can now transplant your seedlings into the ground. To do this, turn over your plant's container, and let the entire plant slide out, catching it at the “base” of the plant or where the plant stalk goes into the soil. Never pull the plant by its main stalk or stems or leaves because you are likely to damage and kill it. Also, you want to make sure that all the roots come with the plant and are not damaged in any way.
Next, pinch the lowest set of leaves off the plant. Place the plant into its prepared hole in the garden, making sure the place where you pinched off the seeds are in this hole as well. These leaf nodes will grow roots and stabilize the plant well. Make sure there is a spadeful of compost in the hole. This will help the plant settle in, and survive any trauma the transplanting process may have caused.
When you cover the rest of your hole with soil, remember to pat it down so your plant is snug in the ground. At the end of the transplanting, water all your plants gently. Some plants do not do well being transplanted because the roots become traumatized. If this is the case with your herbs, you can sow your seeds straight into the ground, and allow them to germinate and grow from there.
Plants with multi-cycle germination should be planted in the same way, but at the beginning of the summer. You will not see them sprout till the following spring, since they have to go through both the warm and cool seasons before sprouting in the next warm season. Heat dependent germinating seeds can also be sown in the summer, and they will sprout right away, but won't grow tall and strong till the early spring of the following year.
