![]() Be heartless and cut the surplus plants to the ground, simply leaving just one seedling in the pot. Don’t wait until the plants start to die, thin out the pot as soon as possible. It’s too late and you’ve already bought a pot of overcrowded seedlings? Yes, you could save them… or more correctly, it, as you’ll want to leave just one. Thin out the pot, leaving just one specimen, without delay. It will give you the best results!Ĭan You Save Crowded Plants? These overcrowded basil seedlings are starting to collapse from stress. When looking for herbs, therefore, and want quality plants, just follow the rule: one plant per pot. Usually these young healthy herbs are sold small pots (six-packs or 2½ inch/6,5 cm containers), ready to be planted in the ground or into a larger pot when you bring them home. The important thing is that the plant has to have space to grow well. Okay, maybe there’s a small straggler sharing its pot, a seedling that germinated late and that the grower didn’t get around to removing. Healthy herbs, ones that will live long and produce an excellent harvest, are sold one plant per pot. The Rule: One Plant Per Pot This is how herbs (here basil seedlings) should be sold: one plant per pot. I heard one supermarket clerk tell a woman that herbs are naturally short-lived: you simply had to buy new plants every two to three weeks! In the herb business, planned obsolescence pays off! ![]() Why produce such horrors? Because the container looks fuller and more mature (though, inevitably, it contains only very young seedlings), so it’s more attractive and therefore it’s more likely that consumers will choose it over a well-grown and truly healthy plant all on its own in a pot.Īlso, once the first pot is dead, the merchant hopes that you will come back for a second one. ![]() Overcrowded pots will need extra watering, probably 2 or 3 times per day, quickly exhausting even the most enthusiastic gardener. Essentially, this is planned obsolescence.Ī single pot may be suitable for 10 very small seedlings, but as they grow, they start to compete for resources: space for their roots, minerals for healthy growth and, most of all, enough water to stay healthy. This results in a pot that looks nice and full, even mature, but the plants are so densely packed they’ll most likely die fairly soon after their purchase. More and more herb sellers (supermarkets, public markets and even garden centers and nurseries that should know better) now offer pots jam-packed with seedlings, with ten plants or more growing in a dense clump. Poor horticulture has begun to dominate in the field of herb plants. A perfect example of how not to grow herbs! The raison d’être of today’s article: I saw these overcrowded and doomed-to-die basil seedlings in a local farmer’s market the other day.
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