Easy Tutorial For Making Self-Watering Herb Jars From Cuttings

While humans can’t regrow whole organs, plants can and do! I learned this a while ago and have been trying to regrow different herbs and vegetable cuttings at home with varying degrees of success. The herbs I’ve been most successful growing have been basil and mint, with thyme, oregano and rosemary taking much longer to grow roots (but with patience eventually do). The cool thing is, you can either replant the cutting in the ground when it sprouts, or keep it in jar filled with water on a bright windowsill. I was looking for an attractive way to do this, that would work as a self-watering system (so the water could be replaced infrequently). Here’s the best option I found so far.

You will need:

1. Clear plastic planting basket. I bought mine on AliExpress.
2. A pretty glass jar. You need your jar’s opening to fit the plastic basket (make sure you measure the diameter). I bought mine at the local dollar store.
3. A herb cutting- in this tutorial I used a basil plant. The idea is to cut a 4 inch (=10 cm) long cutting of basil from your plant, right below a leaf node (the little bumps where the leaves grow from). Ideally the cutting has at least 2 or 3 leaf nodes above the point you cut it from the mother plant. Then remove most of the leaves from the cutting, leaving only the leaves growing on top.
4. Hydrotone, or clay pebbles. I bought mine at the local hydroponic store. You can also find them on amazon.
5. A piece of cotton rope. I used a 4mm cotton rope from a previous macrame project (:

First, measure the distance from the opening of the jar to its base. Cut your cotton cord at this length. Place the cotton cord in the plastic planting basket, then add the basil cutting and clay pebbles to hold it in place.

After about 5-6 weeks, this is what the basil jar looks like:

Pretty cool right? the cotton rope help keep the plant hydrated, even when the water level starts dropping! It’s also a great way to keep your herbs alive while traveling. At this point you either leave the basil to continue growing hydroponically, or plant it in soil.

Let me know how yours turned out. What other herbs have you successfully cultivated in water?