Why grow your own?

There is something really satisfying about growing your own herbs. A quick snip of lovingly grown basil, chives, mint or coriander into an equally lovingly prepared dish adds a level of completeness you just can’t achieve from a jar of dried stuff you bought in Tesco.

While pots of basil, coriander and parsley can be bought from the supermarket for around 59p, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. Fresh herbs from the supermarket are grown in intensive, hot-house conditions, and can be fed with a host of unsavoury pesticides and fertilisers. Because they’re put under so much pressure to produce lots of lush leaves, their root-balls don’t develop properly, so they’re most likely to die as soon as you’ve got them home.