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A garden bed isn’t required to grow herbs, most can be grown in containers, which is ideal way to grow herbs where space is limited if you only have a small courtyard, a balcony, or even just a windowsill. Here are some handy hints for growing herbs in containers:

• Containers are great as small ‘kitchen gardens’ – a garden bed or container outside your kitchen where you can grow your most often used culinary or kitchen herbs. This is very quick and convenient when you need fresh herbs in a hurry!
• Containers allow you to move your plants around to change their growing conditions when necessary. You can change the amount of sun, rain and warmth that they get by moving the container to a different place.
• Any container can be used to grow herbs in as long as it has drain holes at the bottom to prevent water pooling and rotting the plant roots. A large container, such as a half wine-barrel can hold a variety of herbs of various sizes growing altogether. Obviously, small herbs such as mint and chives can be grown in a small pot, but larger herbs will need a much bigger container.
• As a rough guide, a 20cm wide pot can hold one culinary herb, a large 40cm wide pot can accommodate three to four culinary herbs.
• Use a high-grade premium potting mix in containers, feed once a year at the very least, and every few weeks if you’re harvesting them often.
• Repot your herbs every one or two years – giving them fresh potting mix and fertiliser will keep them growing strongly.