How to Grow Herbs in Mason Jars
Kitchen herb gardens provide you with fresh cooking ingredients whenever culinary inspiration strikes. You can grow kitchen herbs in a wide range of container types, from large pots to smaller containers. Mason jars, commonly used for canning food, work for growing herbs on a small scale as long as you provide drainage so excess water doesn't cause the plant roots to rot. Instead of buying new mason jars, look for used jars at thrift stores and flea markets or ask your neighbors for free jars.
Drill several 1/8- to 1/4-inch diameter holes in the bottom of the jars, spaced 3/4 to 1 inch apart and leaving at least 3/4 inch from the edges to allow excess water to drain from the jars. Use a diamond-cutting drill bit and cover the jar with cutting oil. Apply even pressure and drill slowly to avoid breaking the jars. Drilling through glass is difficult, and requires careful and slow cutting. Wear safety glasses and gloves to avoid injury from glass shards if a jar breaks.
Add 1 to 2 inches of gravel or broken pottery pieces to the bottom of the jar to improve drainage or use decorative colored stones since you can see through the mason jar.
Fill the jar with potting soil, using a bagged potting mix or your own mixture of equal parts sphagnum peat, compost and sand. Fill to about 1 inch of the container edge.
Plant your choice of herb transplants in the potting mix, planting them to the same depth as in the original seedling cell pack.
Place all the jars on a shallow tray to collect water as it drains from the containers.
Place the tray with the mason jar gardens in a sunny window where the plants can receive at least six hours of sunlight each day.
Water the plants as needed to keep the soil moist without soaking the soil to risk rotting the roots.
Move the herbs into larger pots if they outgrow the mason jars, then replace with new, young transplants. Although you can grow thriving herbs in mason jars, the small jars can't support large herbs.
- Choose wide mouth mason jars, if possible, to make it easier to plant the herbs.
A former cake decorator and competitive horticulturist, Amelia Allonsy is most at home in the kitchen or with her hands in the dirt. She received her Bachelor's degree from West Virginia University. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle and on other websites.