Thyme from seed

[pelmetman]

Having lost our thyme over the winter I decided to have a go at growing from seed. In the past have always bought plants in.

All the seeds have germinated really well and I now have a large pot full of tiny seedlings. They are still in the greenhouse but as soon as the weather warms up I will put them outside.

I'm just wondering how long they will take to make a decent sized plant for picking?

Sue

[Millymollymandy]

About a year to a full size plant. I grew wild thyme from seed and not only was the seed miniscule, the seedlings were too (making pricking out not a lot of fun!) and the little plants that I planted out in a dry bank were pretty tiny too. But in no time they had spread and now they self seed with gay abandon but I have to spend a lot of time on a difficult steep bank chopping them back as they go tall and woody after flowering . But on the other hand not a lot of things will grow in that dry place. But they really amazed me how quickly they grew once they'd been planted out.

[bonniethomas06]

I have grown thyme from seed this year too - sowed the whole packet into a small pot and dont think I will prick out the seedlings, as they seem to make a nice clump as they are. Will plant out onto rockery, but tbh, enough to roast with a chicken would be about half the plant, so gave in and bought a large pot of a different variety from the garden centre as well

[Keaniebean]

If you can be patient, this time next year you will have lots of lovely thyme all grown from seed, although you wont get too much that is harvestable this year. It's the same with chives and parsley too I've noticed, but a WHOLE load cheaper than buying larger plants.

[Millymollymandy]

I have grown thyme from seed this year too - sowed the whole packet into a small pot and dont think I will prick out the seedlings, as they seem to make a nice clump as they are. Will plant out onto rockery, but tbh, enough to roast with a chicken would be about half the plant, so gave in and bought a large pot of a different variety from the garden centre as well

I left some clumped together too as the pricking out was really time consuming and fiddly. When they were a bit bigger I just broke the clump apart and planted them in mini clumps which did just as well as the individual plants.

I forgot to mention that I have one which has self seeded around the side of the house from where all the other plants are, at the base of a rose. It must be a lot richer soil there as this plant is about 2 foot wide and has swamped all the lower ugly bits of the rose stems and grew from seedling to big plant in about 6 months last year, and flowered much better than the thyme in my dry bank which has poor soil! I find this quite interesting given how it grows in the wild, on dry poor rocky soil, but it certainly seems to like a bit of horse muck too.