or, do supermarkets deliberately poison live pots of herbs?

[counterpoint]

I love a bit of basil or some crunchy coriander chopped up in my summer salads. So I can never resist opting for a pot of live herbs when I am in the veggie section of (usually) Sainsbury's or Morrison's. But they just don't last! No sooner have I pinched a top or two, when the blooming things wilt over and die, overnight!

Am I better off getting a cut bunch of herbs and leaving them in the fridge till needed?

I used to be able to grow herbs. Usually bought them in a pot from the garden centre and they stood on my window sill. They lasted several months. Now, similar pots bought from supermarkets last just a few days at most.

AIBU to think the supermarkets deliberately plant something in the pots so that the herbs do not survive more than a few days and hence we have to keep replenishing them?

Grrr! It's like a Midsomer Murders mystery in my kitchen!

I buy a pot of Tesco basil every month or so, chop
Away at it over the month and usually only get rid when it’s back to stalks only.
Basil doesn’t like being soaked or abnormally dry either.

I've found that happens even with the ones I've bought from the garden centre!

they just die really quickly.

I know it's probably better to transplant them from the pots into better soil or something, but I don't quite know what, and the little pots fit into my decorative plant pots quite nicely, so I don't!

I bought mine from b and q last spring left them out over winter in the snow, they all came back to life! Still going strong now. Supermarket thyme lasted two weeks

I usually plant them out and the snails eat the lot.

Not a happy end, either.

You can keep a basil or coriander plant doing for a bit if you give them a very well judged smallish quantity of water every day and don't use half the plant at once. But neither of them do very well in this country generally. They need about 5 or 6 hours a day of sun for a start. Have you tried rosemary or sage which do a bit better in the UK?

We just take ours out of the plastic covering and keep on the window ledge and water. We currently have some mint, basil and coriander and it lasts.
We buy from Tesco, Sainbury's, Aldi and Asda.

They aren't designed to last. They are often pot bound weak plants that have been treated like pre-packed veg rather than a live plant.

You could try thinning them out/ repotting . You might also have some joy replanting parsley, mint or chives outside in larger pots.

buy a pack of seeds.
or if you must, buy a supermarket pot and replant into 4 pots and chop off any leaves above 5cm or so.

they are grown in supercharged unnatural conditions.
constant light, high level of fertiliser and much too many seeds in one small pot.

I have a basil from Sainsbury’s that has been going for ages on my windowsill. I have to be careful not to overwater, I find it likes a tiny bit of water a day, also if I forget and it looks a bit wilted I can pop some water in and it perks back up.

I bought some basil once and it survived for over a year, until I went away and forgot to ask my dad to water it.

The biggest issue is they put too many seeds in each pot area, it guarantees the plants will grow. If you take them out as soon as you get them home and split apart (you can be quite cruel) you can grow from those split plants for years. I have 2 window box herb gardens which are 6 years and a house move old. All from supermarket herbs, onions and garlic. =)

I've had a pot of supermarket basil on the kitchen windowsill for a couple of months now. Seems to be OK.

As Scrowy said. I have parsley, thyme and mint which I divided up from supermarket pots and put into pots in the garden. It comes up every year. Parsley takes a very long time to germinate, the saying goes that it has 'to go down to the devil and back up again'. Even Sir Monty Don has recommended buying parsley from the supermarket and then dividing it into separate clumps.

I couldn’t find any garden centre basil, coriander or parsley for my herb garden (big planters outside), so I bought some living herbs from the supermarket instead.

Re-potted about a month or so ago - all are thriving and have doubled in size. The coriander (which I bought as a half price ‘use by today’ item) has actually quadrupled in size and is not overshadowing my sage and rosemary (which grow really well in the UK).

I used to keep the herbs on my windowsill like you and they never lasted longer than a week. Some good compost and space to grow does absolute wonders!

Yes, rosemary is fine. I have a few shrubs doing well in the garden. Slug resistant and pretty much hardy come rain wind or shine. Lovely chopped up in roast potatoes.

Thyme is OK outside too - tends to go a bit unruly though.

Both of those are garden centre supplied staples and they last from year to year.

But, it's the summer herbs that only last one season, indoors, away from slugs, that don't do well when I buy them from supermarkets. When I used to get them from garden centres they lasted all summer. I hate making a special trip to a garden centre just to get basil and coriander or parlsey. Especially when the supermarkets sell live ones in the pots (that cost twice as much as a bunch).

And, I only snip a few twigs/branches off at a time. I don't mutilate them.

I've never split them. Maybe that's it.

Basil from supermarket. water it and put in the light on windowsill. Cut the stem about 3" down and pop into some water. Leave on windowsill in light. It will grow roots in 2-3 weeks. Pot into some compost. Grow it on. Repeatwhen a suitable size. Infinite basil.

With mint you pinch out the top leaves, but with basil you take leaves from further down the stalk

Pinch leaves from the bottom? How do you stop apical dominance and ending up with leggy basil, then?

I bet they do you know. They don’t want us a growing our own produce.

annoeoh1 is right. Be mean and split them. I grow my own from seed (dd calls or my pesto plant 😍) and they last ages.

Do cut your soft herbs back or they will grow themselves 'out'. Keep taking the growing tips out to keep plant about same size as when u buy it.

From further down, but not the bottom, that would just be rude . I sound like I might be some kind of expert but me and a colleague read the same article a few years ago and both realised we had got basil all wrong. Neither of us is named 'Cybil'.

put out saucers of beer for slugs (behold teetotal me sorting through cans of beer in supermarket for my slugs!)

I pinch basil leaves out from the top. Keep in the pot in a small dish and put water in the dish not the pot. Lasts for ages.

My problem is that I love basil so I can pretty much use a while pot in one meal.