Matricaria chamomilla
True chamomile
Common names: Field chamomile, Chamomile
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 20 cm, rows 25 cm
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Sowing
- Mar, Apr, May, Sep
- Harvest
- Jun–Aug
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below −10 °C
- Water need
- Low
- Origin
- Native to Germany
Photo: Rob Hille · Public Domain · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
The true chamomile is identified by its hollow flower base and distinctive sweet scent, making it the classic herb for a soothing tea. As an annual self‑sowing plant, it returns year after year to your garden on its own.
Care instructions
Sow in March as a light‑scattered seed directly into the bed, pressing the seeds lightly without covering them with soil. It thrives best in sunny, somewhat sparse locations and requires little water. Harvest the flower heads on a dry morning when the white ray florets stand horizontally.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingMar–May, Sep
HarvestJun–Aug
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 12 °C, ideally 20 °C
- Days to sprout
- 7 to 14 days
- Light
- Needs light to sprout
- Sowing depth
- Press in, don't cover
- How to start
- Sow straight into the bed
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, loamy, well-drained, lean
German chamomile likes loose, well-drained soils without waterlogging. It feels most at home on sites that are poor to moderately fertile and loamy-sandy, where it flowers richly and forms plenty of essential oils. You are better off avoiding acidic soils below pH 6.5, because as a medicinal and tea plant, chamomile accumulates heavy metals in its flowers more readily in acidic soil; heavy, wet clay soils are unsuitable.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar–Apr
In normally fertile garden soil, chamomile needs no fertiliser at all. Only if your soil is very depleted and low in humus, work a thin layer of ripe compost in shallowly before the spring sowing. Go easy on nitrogen-rich applications; too much nitrogen pushes foliage at the expense of flowers and lowers the content of valuable essential oils.
Overwintering
German chamomile is an annual and dies after the seeds ripen. You do not need to overwinter any plant. At the end of the season, let a few flower heads ripen, and it will self-seed; autumn seedlings overwinter as rosettes under a loose cover of dry leaves or brushwood, which you remove again in spring.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
German chamomile is an annual and can only be propagated from seed. Cuttings, division and runners are ruled out. You have two sowing windows: direct sowing in autumn (mid-August to end of September) gives stronger plants and a more abundant harvest the following year, because the seedlings survive the winter as leaf rosettes. In harsh areas, give them some frost protection with a mulch layer of leaves. Alternatively, sow indoors from the end of March and plant the young plants outdoors from May. Note that the delicate taproot makes transplanting difficult, so transplant early and carefully. Or you sow directly from April into the final bed, where no more transplanting is needed. Chamomile is a light-germinating seed: scatter the seeds finely and press them down with the flat of your hand, do not cover them with soil, and keep them evenly moist for the first two weeks. If you let individual plants go to seed, it self-seeds and reappears the next spring without further effort. This is the easiest way to secure a lasting stand in the herb bed.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Rather not
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
For your garden
Grow True chamomile yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
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