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 well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. 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.
Mature height: 5-7 in
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Either works.
When to plant summer savory, by zone
Every zone summer savory grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 8–Apr 15 | May 20–May 27 | Jul 19–Jul 26 |
| 3a & 3b | Apr 18–Apr 25 | May 30–Jun 6 | Jul 29–Aug 5 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 3–Apr 10 | May 15–May 22 | Jul 14–Jul 21 |
| 5a & 5b | Mar 29–Apr 5 | May 10–May 17 | Jul 9–Jul 16 |
| 6a & 6b | Mar 14–Mar 21 | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 24–Jul 1 |
| 7a & 7b | Feb 27–Mar 6 | Apr 10–Apr 17 | Jun 9–Jun 16 |
| 8a & 8b | Feb 11–Feb 18 | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 24–May 31 |
| 9a & 9b | Jan 4–Jan 11 | Feb 15–Feb 22 | Apr 16–Apr 23 |
| 10a & 10b | Dec 19–Dec 26 | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Mar 31–Apr 7 |
| 11a & 11b | Nov 20–Nov 27 | Jan 1–Jan 8 | Mar 2–Mar 9 |
Harvest dates are about 60 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
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)
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy summer savory seeds
Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market (each supplier's 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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