The Joy of Growing Window Herbs Year-Round
Have you ever thought about growing your own indoor herbs? If you’re kitchen windowsill isn’t already crammed full of pots overflowing with leaves, then it should be!
The beauty of keeping a “windowsill herb garden” is that you can rely on a steady supply of leaves all through the year. When outdoor plants have died back or gone dormant over winter, your window herbs will keep happily ticking along.
The process of starting your own “kitchen herb garden” from seed is simple. The great thing is that many plants not normally found in garden centers are available to you. Scrumptious edibles like dark basil, chamomile, lovage and yarrow (to name a few) are all options. What about the magical, medieval plant mugwort? Or that favourite for making lozenges, horehound?
Old favourites like thyme and rosemary will also fare wonderfully indoors as long as they’re properly looked after. Energetic perennials like chives will continue to grow even when light levels dip in winter. So you can lightly harvest even through the darkest months.
All you need are some pots, a good potting mix and some plant feed. If you’re starting your seeds indoors, where there’s no risk of critters eating the young seedlings, you can sow directly into the pots.
Let several seeds germinate and keep the best after they’ve put on some growth, snipping off the others with a pair of scissors. During late spring, summer and early autumn, your plants will be grateful for a bi-monthly or monthly liquid feed. Use a balanced NPK fertilizer (nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium) and a micronutrient feed like liquid seaweed. Many of the problems with herbs are due to trace element deficiencies.
And that’s it! The infographic included below is a visual guide to the process. Remember not to overcomplicate things and don’t be afraid of killing the odd plant…they don’t mind too much.
Indoor herb gardening is growing in popularity by the day. Space-stretched city-dwellers, foodies, and even people with big gardens are filling their kitchen windowsills with potted herbs.
There are so many benefits and almost no drawbacks. It’s cheaper, tastier and also possible to grow unusual and forgotten plants…yarrow or lovage, anyone?
In this little guide, and with the help of my infographic below, I want to cover the main steps involved in growing a scrumptious indoor herb garden.
View the original post with infographic at “UrbanTurnip.org“
