If you have brought herbs and actually any other plants indoors to overwinter, by now you may have noticed weak spindly growth at the ends of the plant stems. My rosemary herb plants keep sprouting these weak leggy shoots.🌿

Also, you may find weaker leggy growth developing on an herb plant that you’ve brought home from a garden center or green grocer.

This leggy growth is caused because the light levels indoors are lower than the plant has been accustomed to outdoors, or in a commercial greenhouse.⛅  Yes, even in a bright window, herb plants can develop spindly shoots in search of more light.  Especially in the winter❄️.

For established herb plants that are overwintering indoors, I snip off all this new growth as it weakens the plant.  And use it up in the kitchen🍲. These tender herb shoots are milder tasting than tougher herb stems, and delicious added to fresh salads or chopped last-minute into soups.😃

For smaller herb plants, pinch off the tips of the herb plant to promote bushier growth.  And be sure to eat these too 😃

To prevent or decrease spindly leggy growth on indoor herb plants, add a source of artificial light💡  Place the light about 12 inches (approx 30 cm) above your plants.  if your herb plants are still stretching for light, decrease the gap between the light and herb plants.  Watch your herb plants, and increase the gap if you find the leaves start to burn from the light.

I bring in at least a couple of dozen plants for the winter (mostly herb plants), and figure it’s cheaper for me to repurchase the plants in the spring if I lose them, than to shine lights on them for 12 – 16 hours a day.  But that’s just me.  I have a friend who happily shines lights on most of her indoor plants all winter long☃️💡

Happy Gardening 🙂
Barb

PS – make this super easy Rosemary Bean Salad for a delicious way to use leggy rosemary clippings.   Substitute herb clippings of your choice for the rosemary 🙂
Here’s the recipe link:  Rosemary Bean Salad

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