If you are combining two or more different herb varieties into one container, make sure they share the same requirements for sunlight, moisture, and soil. Here are our five choices for the herbs best suited for growing in containers. Planting mint in containers solves these problems. Individual varieties can be kept far enough apart so that your pineapple mint won’t suddenly start tasting like catnip/pineapple. And mint confined in a container stays there—it doesn’t spread rampantly through your garden. When it comes to choosing the best herbs for container gardening, mint should be your first choice. Sage also tolerates dryer soil than most other commonly-grown herbs, so growing it in a container enables you to maintain the right growing conditions. Sage dries very well and if you pinch its leaves throughout the growing season, put a rubber band on them, and keep them safe after drying, by the end of the season you will have enough bundles to make an herb wreath—a lovely gift that requires very little effort. Rosemary prefers sandy soil; it doesn’t like to sit in water and prefers the soil to dry out between waterings. Growing rosemary in a container enables you to address its specific growing conditions. Containers provide flexibility: you can position the container so that the plants receive plenty of sunlight and sufficient air-flow; air-flow is essential to prevent mildew. Basil also likes a somewhat richer soil than most other herbs, which you can provide through soil amendments. Basil is often used in recipes calling for tomatoes, so it’s convenient to grow basil near your container-grown patio tomato plants.
