Why the Kitchen Door Is the Best Site in the Garden

There is a good reason generations of cottage gardeners kept their herbs within arm's reach of the back door. A herb garden is only as useful as it is accessible. If you have to put on wellingtons and walk the length of the plot for a sprig of thyme, you will reach for the dried jar instead, and the whole exercise becomes ornamental rather than practical.

The doorstep has other advantages. Cottage walls hold warmth long after the sun has gone, so a south or west-facing door creates a sheltered microclimate a degree or two kinder than the open garden. Rain shadows from deep eaves and drip lines from gutters mean the soil there is often drier than you expect, which suits Mediterranean herbs such as rosemary, thyme and oregano far better than soggy clay. You also pass the spot a dozen times a day, which means you notice aphids, drying pots and bolting parsley before they become a problem.

Choosing Herbs That Earn Their Place

Be ruthless. A doorstep is a small piece of ground, and it should be planted with things you actually cook with. The reliable cottage larder runs something like this:

• Flat-leaf parsley — far better flavoured than curly, and worth sowing twice a year.
• Chives — clumps return year after year, and the flowers are edible.
• Thyme — common or lemon; a low, sprawling shrub that loves a hot edge.
• Sage — purple or tricolour looks handsome and tastes just as good with pork and squash.
• Rosemary — give it room; a mature plant can reach a metre or more across.
• Bay — clip it into a standard in a pot and it will serve you for decades.
• Mint — always in a pot, never in the border, unless you want a mint lawn.
• Oregano and marjoram — superb dried, so a glut is no disaster.

Tender herbs such as basil, coriander and chervil are best treated as annuals, sown in pots on the windowsill or in a warm corner and replaced every few weeks.

Pots, Borders and the Cottage Doorstep

A pair of terracotta pots either side of the door is the classic arrangement, and it works because it frames the entrance while keeping everything at waist height. Choose pots of at least 30cm across for rosemary, sage or bay; smaller herbs will sulk and dry out in anything meaner. Stand them on feet or broken tiles so water drains freely, and use a soil-based compost such as John Innes No. 2 mixed with a good handful of horticultural grit.

If you have a border, use it well. Plant thyme along the front edge where it can spill over a stone, chives as a neat edging, and rosemary or bay as a small shrub to anchor the corner. A gravel apron against the wall keeps leaves clean and splashes down, and stepping stones set into it mean you can pick in the rain without treading mud into the kitchen.

Soil, Drainage and Old Cottage Ground

Older cottage gardens are rarely blessed with perfect soil. Heavy clay, builders' rubble, lime, shade from a north-facing wall — all are common. The fix is usually the same: improve structure rather than fight it. Fork in well-rotted manure or garden compost each autumn, add grit to sticky ground, and raise the planting area slightly if water sits after rain. Mediterranean herbs will not tolerate wet roots in winter, so if your doorstep stays damp, keep them in pots and move them under the eaves.

Remember that a wall casts a shadow and a rain shadow. The strip within about 45cm of the house may be surprisingly dry, so water new plantings through their first summer and keep an eye on containers, which can need a soaking every other day in July.

Keeping the Harvest Coming

Regular picking is the secret to a productive herb patch. Cut chives hard after flowering and they will throw fresh green blades within a fortnight. Pinch out the tips of basil to keep it bushy and stop it running to seed. Never strip more than a third of a plant at once, and always cut above a pair of leaves so new growth has somewhere to break from.

Sow parsley in spring and again in midsummer for a supply into autumn. In colder parts of the country, a glass cloche or a small cold frame over a pot of parsley or chervil will keep you in leaves through most of the winter. Rosemary, thyme, sage and bay sail through frost without help.

Making It Look as Good as It Tastes

Practicality need not mean scruffiness. Matched pots, a stone trough, a simple wooden trug by the door for secateurs and string — small details lift the whole entrance. Let thyme tumble over a step, allow chives to flower purple in June, and set a pot of mint where its scent catches you as you pass.

The pleasure of this little garden is that it rewards you twice: once when you look at it from the window with a cup of tea, and again when you step out in the middle of cooking, scissors in hand, and come back with exactly what supper needed.