Many Herbs Begin as Easy Seeds to Grow in the Garden

Before we get into specific herbs, let's look at what it means to be "easy to start from seed."

In my opinion, easy seeds have the following characteristics:

• they are simple to plant
• they require little care to germinate and grow
• they almost always show up

Easy seeds are the ones that grow and grow and grow without too much fuss. They're the seeds that make us feel like a pro even if we know we're a beginner.

When it comes to herbs, these easy seeds become easy plants. Herbs demand very little of you in terms of space, sun, or nutrients. Since most herbs are grown for their leaves, you’ll get to harvest from your plants almost as soon as they start growing. You might even say herbs are the most generous plants you’ll meet—they let you take from them again and again, all while asking for so little in return. 

The main tending task for herbs is the most rewarding one: harvesting. Picking leaves for tonight’s dinner actually helps prevent pests, deters disease, and even encourages more leaf production. 

If that weren't enough, these easy plants then create more of themselves pretty quickly once they've finished growing (meaning they produce lots of seeds for next year). This means the seeds aren't just easy to grow once but again (and again). 

Our Top 5 Herbs That Grow from Easy Seeds Are:

-basil

-sage

-cilantro

-calendula

-garlic

Excited about growing these easy seeds in your herb garden? Keep reading.

Basil Is One of the Easiest Herbs to Grow from Seed

Basil is an absolute garden favorite.

Basil loves hot, dry weather and loads of sunshine, but basil seeds do need to stay moist in order to sprout and grow.

Basil seeds are super tiny, so when you plant basil seeds, you've got to be super careful to spread the seeds out. From tiny beginnings, each basil plant can grow huge, so you want to give your seeds a minimum of 4 inches distance from one another. In the end, one basil plant may end up taking up an entire square foot of the garden, but not if you harvest and use it frequently (which you totally should).

There are a million different basil varieties, but our favorite for flavor is sweet basil. We also love Thai basil for the flowers and purple basil because it's just so pretty. Explore the best types of basil to grow in your herb garden or kitchen garden.

Learn how to grow your basil from seed, how to get more leaves from you basil plants, how to save seeds from your basil plant, and how to propagate your basil to get even more plants for free.

Sage Is a Low-Maintenance Herb to Grow in the Garden

Sage—the perfect accompaniment to fresh pasta.

Unlike some of the other seeds in the same herb family, sage seeds are a little bigger, which makes them easy to separate and plant out—plus, they seem to germinate (that means sprout) quite quickly.

You can start sage seeds indoors under lights, or you can plant seeds directly in the garden.

Sage is a super cooperative plant that can hold up under lots of different conditions, including full sun or partial shade and both hot and cooler temperatures. When temperatures get higher, sage will produce the prettiest purple flowers that contain hidden treasure once they dry: more and more seeds!

Learn more about growing your own organic sage.

Cilantro Grows Incredibly Well from Seed in the Herb Garden

Whether you love it or hate it, there's no denying it: cilantro is a must-grow in your herb garden.

Cilantro seeds (otherwise known as coriander) are the size of a pellet and fairly easy to spread out and plant in the garden. Read more on how to grow your own cilantro from seed.

Cilantro loves growing in the cooler parts of the year, so plant the seeds as soon as the threat of frost has passed. Then, plant more seeds when the summer weather cools in order to get lots of cilantro in the fall. Cilantro plants need to be spaced about 4 to 6 inches apart, as the plants will eventually grow quite tall and large.

Harvest cilantro as soon as you can because the plant loves its seeds so very much that it tends to start flowering quickly. But good thing: all those flowers just mean more seeds, and they're super easy to harvest. It's a win-win, no matter what.

Calendula Is an Easy-to-Grow Herb That Will Protect Your Garden from Pests

Never tried growing calendula? It's such a pretty addition to the garden and will bring so much to your herb garden, even if you never use the blooms to make your own calendula tea. Here are our top four reasons to add calendula to your kitchen garden.

Calendula seeds have the most unique shape, they're easy to handle, and in our very unscientific tests, calendula was the first of over 15 types of seeds to pop up and grow. We've got the step by steps to grow organic calendula from seed.

Calendula prefers cooler temperatures, so grow it in the spring and fall. As soon as flowers begin to open, harvest them regularly.

At the end of the plant's season, each calendula bloom will start to turn brown and dry out. Guess what? This means more seeds are forming. Told you it was easy! Learn the simplest way to save your own calendula seeds.

Garlic Is the Best "Plant It and Forget It" Herb

What's that? You don't think garlic is an herb? Can we convince you otherwise?

In our book, herbs are any kind of plant that's used medicinally or therapeutically, or to add flavor or nutrition during or after cooking. And garlic? It's all those things.

Whether you think it counts as an herb is no biggie. What does matter is whether or not you're growing it—and you should be.

We're not technically growing garlic from seed but from a garlic clove (but it's still easy).

Plant garlic by burying individual cloves broken off from one main garlic bulb. The cloves are a snap to plant because they're big and easy to handle, and all you have to do is dig a hole and be certain that the tip of the garlic is pointing up.

Another great thing about garlic is that you plant it in the fall and then get to almost forget about it until late spring/early summer.

Get the complete step by step to growing your own garlic.

That's All There Is to Growing These Easy Herbs from Seed

Easy does it! Growing herbs is the very best investment you can make as you start or grow your own kitchen garden. Both fresh and dried herbs are super pricey at the grocery store, and then, they don't even taste that great. But for pennies, you can start all these herbs from seed and grow enough for yourself, your family and friends, even your whole city if you want to.

And at the end of all the harvests, you'll have more seeds for next year.

Could it be easier?

Now that you know the best way to start, let's begin already. Ditch those grocery store herbs and grow your own for the entire year with Gardenary.