How To Grow Your Own Indoor Herb Garden

• Organic Gardening For Beginners
• Companion Planting Guide
• Seed Saving Tips & Techniques

There are many good reasons to grow an indoor herb garden. For beginning gardeners, it can be a satisfying first experience. For beginning and experienced gardeners alike, it can be a perfect solution to limited gardening space. No matter what, it is a great way for home cooks to keep fresh, home-grown herbs on hand.

There are several key considerations to keep in mind when growing your indoor garden. The most important step is to choose a location that gets plenty of sunlight. Ideally, you will find a spot by a window with eight or more hours of direct sunlight a day. If your herbs develop long stems and leaves, discolored leaves, or leaves the fall off for no apparent reason, they may not be getting enough sunlight. If there is no better location available, you can augment the sunlight with grow lights available at you nursery, or with florescent shop lights kept 4 to 6 inches above the plants.

The next step is to decide which herbs you want to grow. Nursery catalogs and the staff at your local garden center are excellent resources. But you may simply want to pick your favorite herbs. Here are some good bets if you are not sure: oregano, chives, mint, rosemary, basil, parsley, and thyme. All of these appear in popular recipes and produce attractive foliage and fragrances. As a plus, these are also a hearty group that would be fairly easy to transplant outside if you should choose to do so later.|

Many people enjoy Italian food so much that they spend their efforts on a specialized Italian herb garden. That’s something for you to consider.

You’ll also have to choose the correct kind of containers. Ask you nursery staff for advice in picking out containers, but make certain the they’re 6 to 8 inches across, and at lest 6 to 8 inches deep. You could also group the plants into a larger container, placing them 6 to 8 inches apart. When setting up the containers, drainage is really a key consideration. You’ll wish to put screen mesh more than the drainage holes, and set the containers themselves inside a tray full of gravel. A well-draining potting mix that’s meant for edibles and indoor use. Again, the staff at your local garden center will be able to assist you pick out a suitable mix.

Layer potting mix into the bottom of the containers. Carefully set the plants into the potting mix at the depth they were growing in the nursery pots, and water them. It is essential that you do not over water your herbs. A thorough watering no more them twice a week should be plenty. If you like, you can supplement the potting mix once or twice a month with a fertilizer approved for use with edibles.

Wait until you see new growth before you begin harvesting. Carefully clip the outermost sprigs as you use them. It is easy to deplete the herbs by harvesting too much to quickly. But if you are careful, it is just as easy to keep the herbs producing continually for a long time.

You will find a couple of difficulties to watch out for when developing anything indoors. For a single thing, indoor air tends to be dryer than outdoor air. You might have to require supply additional moisture by gently misting the leaves or by adding drinking water for the gravel tray under the containers. An additional potential issue is pests. Insects whose eggs would usually be thinned by the cold night air, flourish within the warmer indoor climate. If pests start to inundate your herbal remedies, fill a spray bottle with soapy tap drinking water and spray the leaves and stems. This answer will kill the bugs without having causing damage for the herbal remedies.

Otherwise, all you have to do is appreciate the flavors and fragrances of your fresh herbal remedies, and bask within the pride of successfully developing an indoor herb garden. No matter what your encounter level as a gardener or a house cook, you’ll no doubt be pleased with the outcome.