Building a Small Herb Garden in Recycled Tins

There is something quietly satisfying about a herb garden that began life as a tin of chopped tomatoes. Recycled food tins cost nothing, take up about as much room as a saucer, and sit happily on a kitchen doorstep, a windowsill or a cramped patio corner. Fill a handful of them with basil, mint and parsley and you have a cutting garden within arm's reach of the chopping board.

Why Old Tins Earn Their Keep

Metal tins are close to ideal for small herbs. They come in a useful range of sizes — a 400g tin suits a tidy clump of basil, while a large 800g tin gives parsley the depth its long taproot wants. Metal warms quickly in the sun, which basil adores, and because each tin is small you can shuffle it about as the seasons shift, chasing light in spring and shade in high summer. They are also free and endlessly replaceable, and look charming in a slightly scruffy way once a label or two has weathered off.

The one drawback is rust: an unglazed tin will eventually rot through after two or three seasons. Treat them as seasonal planters and start a fresh set when they give up.

Prepping the Tins Properly

Begin with clean tins, free of food residue. Soak them in hot soapy water and most labels will peel away on their own; a warm hairdryer softens stubborn glue. A label left on for decoration will only turn mouldy once it gets wet.

The cut rim is the real hazard. Run a finger around it, and if it feels sharp, smooth it with a few strokes of a metal file or fold it inwards with pliers. A strip of masking tape around the top edge is a quick fix that also hides a ragged rim.

Next, drainage. Use a hammer and a sturdy nail to punch three or four holes in the base — 5mm is plenty — working from the inside out with the tin upside down on a block of scrap wood. If you have an old-fashioned tin opener that makes triangular holes, use that instead.

Stand each tin on an old saucer or a tin lid. Metal marks wooden windowsills when wet, and a saucer catches the water that drains through.

Compost, Drainage and Position

Fill the base of each tin with a 2cm layer of grit or broken crockery, then top up with a peat-free multi-purpose compost mixed with about a quarter by volume of horticultural grit or perlite. Herbs loathe sitting in a soggy, airless root run, and a small tin of plain compost turns into a bog within a week.

Position matters enormously. Basil wants full sun and warmth — six hours or more, close to a south-facing wall. Parsley copes with sun or light shade and appreciates shelter from the fiercest midday heat. Mint is the shade-lover of the three and will grow quite happily on a north-facing step, provided the compost stays damp.

Planting Basil, Mint and Parsley

The simplest route is to buy a supermarket pot of each herb and split it. Water the pot well, tip out the rootball and gently tease it into three or four pieces, planting one piece per tin at the same depth it grew before.

• Basil: one clump per tin, lightly firmed and watered in, kept indoors for the first week. Pinch out the growing tip above the second pair of leaves to push it into a bushy plant rather than a single leggy stem.
• Mint: always give it its own tin — the running roots will swamp anything else within a season. Plant it so the compost surface sits 2cm below the rim, which leaves room for generous watering.
• Parsley: choose flat-leaf (French) for cooking and give it your deepest tin. It has a long taproot and resents being moved, so sow seed directly in late spring and expect to wait three or four weeks for germination.

Watering and Feeding Through Summer

Small volumes of compost dry out alarmingly fast. Check every morning by pushing a finger in to the second knuckle. In July and August a 400g tin may need watering daily, and twice on a hot, breezy day. Basil prefers the top centimetre to dry out between waterings; mint and parsley want things consistently moist.

Compost runs out of food after about six weeks. From midsummer, feed with diluted liquid seaweed or tomato feed every fortnight. Half strength is plenty — too much nitrogen gives you leafy herbs with very little flavour.

Harvesting Well and Keeping Them Going

The rule with all three herbs is never to remove more than a third of the plant at once. Snip basil just above a pair of leaves so two new shoots break from the node. Cut parsley stems at the base from the outside of the clump, leaving the centre to keep producing. Pinch mint tips constantly; it is the only way to stop it turning woody and coarse.

When cold weather arrives, bring the tins indoors to a bright windowsill. Mint will die back completely and reappear in spring, parsley often stands through a mild winter, and basil will sulk and run to seed — worth one late sowing on a warm sill to see you through. Come March, tip the spent compost into the bin, punch a fresh set of tins, and begin again.