Supermarket selling pot growing dinner herbs - why die?

[kangapants]

Hiya!
Why can I not grow a fresh herb plant from a supermarket? E.g Basil, Mint, Thyme.
I buy them in a lovely pot with plastic and use the leaves etc. but when I try to plant them in a pot afterwards - they die straight away.
Are they genetically designed to die so I have to buy them again?
Or is it my cat, Basil, making a urinary point?
Cheers!X

I stuck a pretty dead looking pot of mint outside the back door to sort out later and forgot it. Found it the other day and it's doing great, talk about thrive on neglect.

It’s almost impossible to kill mint! It has a really vigorous root system so even if the leaves die back it will usually spring up again. I keep mine confined in a separate pot from my other herbs as it is so invasive.

PPs are right in that supermarket herbs are just lots of seedlings in a pot. They have far too much competition to all keep growing, but if you pull out, say, 75% the rest should grow on. You can keep tender herbs like basil growing on a windowsill through the colder months but it will die outside over winter.

I buy plug plants cheaply on eBay, there are lots of smaller nurseries that sell on there.

Mint is super resilient. I bought a pot at the start of the summer, it just about survived being looked after by our neighbours daughter (she was cat sitting, but I asked her to water the plants too). Then we had the really hot spell, I forgot to water it, it got really leggy and dry ... I then put it outside in the hope it’d get rained on and recover. It didn’t, it ‘died’. Now it’s cooling down and rained a bit, the leggy dry thing has loads of fresh little minty leaves on it.

I replant in a trough and they go crazy, and and all of them. the pots you buy them in are deliberately over crammed full so they will never last in those pots (google it!). Separate out much smaller sections into a much larger pot and it should work!

Who said you can't grow basil outside?!?!

No no no! @Kangapants the trick is to separate the herb plant when you buy it. Literally grab the rootball and rip it to pieces. Replant and you'll have robust herbs for the rest of your life. I promise. My first window box from 7 years ago is still going strong.

The herb growers overfill the pots with seeds to guarantee sufficient growth. The plant you're seeing is really a lot of different plants growing together. I promise you this will work!

I have parsley (flat and curly), basil, rosemary, mint, chive, oregano, sage and thyme. All from original supermarket plants 7 years ago. I've also got onions, garlic greens, chills and tomatoes grown from supermarket buys. =)

Another vote for dealing with the overcrowding.

Buy the smallest pot of supermarket herbs you can.
Take them out of the pot and put the whole root ball into a bowl of water.
After an hour you should be able to gently tease them apart into about four or six clusters.
Pot each of those up into a pot the same size as the original
do not buy pots, get them from the recycling box outside any Haskins / Wyevale
they will grow fine.

Same with live lettuce - I divide each tray into 24 little plugs and it lasts me several months planted out in the spring

I’ve planted all of ours - they’ve all survived. Maybe soil? Sunlight?

Katie Onions???

I bought a chives one, stuck it into a pot outside and it grew like mad and even got gorgeous flowers on!!

Same, every coriander plant dies in a week!

Coriander is tricky as it needs a good root run and has a thick root
so they sell them just before they will all starve

easier to grow it from seed at home

@StripySocksAndDocs I've got basil growing outside in my garden right now! I'm in the UK

You can solve the coriander issue by throwing it in the compost. Vile stuff.