Growing Summer Savory: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Summer savory is a low, bushy annual with a peppery, thyme-adjacent flavor that’s traditionally paired with beans so often its German name, Bohnenkraut, translates directly to “bean herb.” It’s milder and less woody than its perennial cousin, winter savory, and dies back completely each fall rather than persisting.
Sowing it
Direct-sow after your last frost, or start indoors in warm conditions (around 86°F by day, 68°F at night) and transplant once seedlings have four true leaves. Seed needs light to germinate, so sow it on the surface rather than burying it. Germination takes 7 to 14 days at 65-70°F. Space plants 8 inches apart in rows about 18 inches apart.
At just 5 to 7 inches tall, it’s one of the more compact herbs in a kitchen garden, easy to tuck along a bed edge without it shading anything nearby.
Harvesting before it flowers
Cut fresh growth once the plant is established for the mildest flavor, or gather whole plants for drying once flower buds form, right before the flavor peaks and starts to fade. Since it’s an annual with no winter comeback, plan on resowing every year rather than expecting it to return.
The bean pairing isn’t just tradition
Summer savory’s reputation as a bean companion goes back centuries in European kitchen gardens, both cooked alongside beans to cut the starchiness and grown nearby in the belief it improves their flavor. Whatever the garden-bed effect, the culinary pairing holds up on its own merits.
Summer savory has no recorded companions or antagonists in our data. See the full companion guide for summer savory for how it’s tracked. Its small size and dense 4-per-square-foot spacing make it an easy edge planting in the Garden Designer, including right next to the beans it’s traditionally served with.
Source: Summer Savory: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Summer Savory · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Summer Savory tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Summer Savory plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 5-7 in.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species summer savory (Satureja hortensis): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells it as the plain species; there's no real named-cultivar market. The species itself is the point, a distinct annual plant from perennial winter savory, not two versions of the same herb. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy summer savory seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing summer savory" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Summer Savory: A low, peppery annual herb whose German name literally translates to "bean herb," for the pairing it's most known for.
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