Herbs have been used for centuries as a way to heal people. The smells alone are used in aromatherapy. People spend a lot of money in order to have the smells ever present in their home. By growing a windowsill herb garden, you will be able to enjoy these smells all the time. The two most calming aromas used are lavender and chamomile. Lavender is very easy to grow so because of the kind of plant it is. Being a perennial bush, it will grow in many different conditions. Being in a small space, you will b able to enjoy the smells more than someone with a large home.

Constant temperature is highly beneficial to herbs. When grown outside, herbs sometimes struggle because of fluctuations in temperature. Being able to control the temperature allows you to enable your plants to thrive. You will be able to grow basil in the middle of the winter by using a windowsill herb garden. This allows you to enjoy the flavor of a freshly made pesto without having to run to the store. Early frost will not affect your plants ability to continue to grow. Just remember, some plants like sage do better if they are able to go through a little bit of a frost.

Using a windowsill herb garden allows you to control the amount of water your plants get. One of the worst things about growing outside is when it rains right after you water your plants. The chances to over water are greater when outside. There is also the tendency to dry out the soil your plants are in when planting outside. Soil, which is too dry, can absorb the moisture before your herbs ever get the chance to utilize it. Gardening inside allows you complete control over how much water your plants are getting.

When gardening indoors, you have more control over the soil your herbs are grown in. When growing outside, you need to bring a sample of soil in to a nursery to be examined. They will tell you the nutrient levels of your dirt so they can tell you what you can grow. When planting at home, you can simply mix potting soil with sand and a tablespoon of lime. This will give you the perfect combination of absorbent and retentive soil. Be sure to check your soil a couple times a day. Make sure it is moist to the touch.

Your apartment is surely decorated to your tastes. You will want to have a windowsill herb garden, which will match your decor. This is possible due to the many different styles of pots and trays available at nurseries and online. You are sure to pick out one, which will meet your needs. It is recommended to plant in clay pots so your plants will have the chance to breathe.

Growing herbs in containers require no extraordinary effort and is no more demanding than growing vegetables in containers.  The three basics of  culturing herbs in containers is soil, light and water.  Simply stated herbs in pots need plenty of sunlight (at least ten hours per day), well drained soil and enough water to just keep the soil damp.

Getting started growing herbs in pots is easy. All that is needed is a few six inch pots (a good size for herbs).  Herb plants are not very demanding but they are insistent about one thing.  They don’t like wet feet and they will demonstrate their dislike by either not producing a product or by just merely dying.  Well drained soil to live in is an easy request to satisfy.  Place a layer of pea gravel size stone material in the bottom of the pot then fill it with a mixture of two parts potting soil and one part coarse sand.  Doing this will insure that the plants receive adequate moisture while excess water drains out through the gravel.  Add a teaspoon of lime for sweetness and you are ready for planting.

Adequate lighting is another important consideration. To prosper and provide the most delectable fresh herbs for the home chef the plants need ten to twelve hours of light every day.  Sunlight is the best but if that is not possible then “grow lights” will get the job done.  Grow lights are nothing more than a small florescent light fixture with the word grow appended to the name.  They are readily available at any number of places including big box stores, garden shops, nurseries or hardware stores.  Place the lights about eighteen inches above the plants and have them on ten to twelve hours per day to coincide with the amount of time in the sunlight they would normally receive.  Sunlight is better for the plants, it’s free and you don’t have to plug it into a wall socket.  A quick survey of where the sun shines into or around the house will indicate where the potted herbs should be located.  Wherever they are located they should be rotated at least weekly.

To get the herb plants started in the prepared pots the gardener can choose to begin with seed, bulbs or seedlings.  With seed or bulbs it is possible to grow more than one herb per pot but that depends on the herb.  Seedlings are a good way to get a fast start by just transferring the established seedling into the prepared pot.  Annuals are replanted each year and perennials should be replanted in the pot each year in new potting soil or transferred to the outdoor garden.

Growing herb plants in pots is easy and rewarding. It is a great way to get started in outdoor herb gardening or a practical to cultivate herbs on an extended basis.

Here are some popular herbs to consider for your home herb garden.

French Sorrel

This herb is becoming increasingly popular today. Sorrel has been familiar to Europeans for centuries as a salad herb, potherb, and basis for a popular meat sauce. It is easy to grow and take care of. One thing to be aware of is that snails and slugs are attracted to sorrel, so you’ll have to check it every day to make sure your precious herbs don’t get devoured. Also, keep the thick flower stalks cut to encourage leaf growth.

Rosemary

Here is one that we have all heard of! Rosemary has been a culinary herb since ancient times. It is hardy to about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to plant it in a area that gets full sun and good protection. If you live in a climate that gets below 10 degrees, be sure to plant it in pots so you can bring it inside during the winter. Grows up to 3 feet tall. Rosemary complements many meat dishes (particularly lamb), stews, and vegetables.

Chives

In nature, Chives occur over a vast geographic range, from Asia through the Middle East to Europe and also in North America. You’ll be very happy with the production that chives generate, even during their first year! They need to be divided every year, so you’ll have lots of them fast! Chives produce beautiful lilac flowers that are also edible. They are perennials that grow well in sun or partial shade. They are a great garnish for potatoes, cheese and egg dishes, salads, and soups.

Parsley

Herbalists recommend parsley as a digestive aid and diuretic; applied to the skin, it has been credited with alleviating bruises. Plant curly parsley from seed and be patient. It takes up to three weeks to germinate. It is biennial, but usually planted as an annual because it will grow better that way. Seeds should be soaked in hot water before planting. Can tolerate partial shade, and needs lots of water. Harvest leaves before the plants flower because the leaves flavor becomes bitter once flower stalks form. Parsley works well as a garnish in salads, soups, egg dishes, and vegetables.

Thyme

The Egyptians used thyme in embalming preparations. I hope that didn?t make you lose your appetite for thyme as a culinary herb! There are many varieties of thyme, but the main culinary varieties are French, English, and garden thyme. Thyme grows like a miniature shrub with tiny leaflets all over and pale little flowers in summer. This is a very hardy perennial. Needs full sun and grows 12 feet tall. Good with poultry, fish, and pork; in sauces and soups; and in vinegar.

Sage

Sage was once esteemed for its medicinal properties. Used to cure such issues as broken bones, wounds, stomach disorders, and loss of memory. Sage grows vigorously in a sunny spot. May become woody and need replacing after four or five years. A very hardy perennial that grows at least two feet tall. Traditionally used for stuffing meat and poultry and common in Mediterranean and Near Eastern dishes.

Have fun growing!

It is simpler to give cover than it is to add sun. For illustration, you can put the cover favoring plants on the east periphery of more taller, sun-loving plants. They can be tall herbs or even sunflowers, as prolonged as they generate selected cover for the extra touchy herbs.   Check out garden centers and realize about the needs of certain herbs. Climate, soil, watering, and resolution ought to all be thought out. Herbs are used to flavor foods, equally medicinal treatments, equally potpourri (dried leaves, petals, and flower heads) in support of both ornamentation and perfume, and also solely for yard beautification and cologne.  

Do you aspire the herb garden designs to bear alone in a raised bed, be integrated with your vegetable garden, be utilized as markers along a path, or equally filler for your landscaping? Perhaps you wish for to fill a window box with herbs, or own a pot of them growing on your kitchen windowsill, for expedient picking as you cook.   If you dwell in a sweltering climate, you may well require to do container planting, to enable you to displace the pots to well covered areas for the period of the warmest part of the daytime. Or conversely, in cool climates, you might require to move them to get as much sun as probable.  

To intensify the amazing highly spiced scents of your herbs, you might try walling or fencing inside your herb patch design. It force capture the delightful smells and moreover present you a exclusive refuge. To extend add to the feature of this type of garden, add-on a birdbath or fountain, which will appeal to butterflies and birds to theplaceand provide additional wetness to your plants.  

The smell will moreover be extend intensified, giving you an intimate, and delightful decorative herb garden.   If particular of your herbs need supplementary fertilizing and water than others, design your garden as two apart beds, with a path in sandwiched between. It desire get on to for an appealing design, and you will be giving all your herbs exactly what they require.  

For the reason that of the awesome assortment of sizes, textures, and colors of herbs, it is trouble-free to designed form a dramatic and decorative herb garden design. Truly remember not to put your tallest herbs in such a approach that they impede the sun for your smaller assortment. And if you are implementing the herbs for culinary, try to place the everyday spices nearer to the outside of your patterns for ease  

Parsley, with its rich emerald, low, lustrous leaves make for lovely attractive border planting. Chives and sage with their purple flowers, lemon grass, rosemary with its impetuous whiff and tiny blue flowers, mint?these all are both ornate and delicious!   With selected planning, your herb garden design will be majestic, aromatic, and productive, giving you boundless delight and amazing seasonings designed for your favored foods.

I admit a happy chance landed those chives plants into my life some years ago. Yes, I stumbled into beginning my own home herb garden by planting chives plants aplenty! Usually people are led into planting an herb garden by their love of cooking with herbs. Nope. Not me. While an avid novice gardener, herbs were totally lacking in my cooking. But, an encounter with chives plants in my herb home garden changed all that. The entire experience drew me to introduce you to chives as an herb plant for your garden and share my tips and discoveries gardening with chives herbs taught me.

Typically people think of chives as these dried up little green pieces that look like cuttings from your lawn. Sadly little taste survives in this dried version. Most of us are introduced to using chives as an herb simply as a condiment for a baked potato…sour cream with chives. Due to its past classification as a common household herb, the fascinating features of chives as a plant and herb have been much maligned. Here’s what I unearthed as a beginner planting my own home herb garden when I somehow mistakenly ordered 9 chives plants, but intended to get only 1.

The Basics Of Chives Plants For The Home Herb Garden

Chives are part of the onion family but the flavor is much milder and more subtle. Until you’ve tasted fresh chives you won’t believe the difference in taste from those dried up commercial counterparts sold at the store! Chives grow in clumps, which is why they’re always referred to as plural. The upright green shoots growing from the clumps are really called the leaves of the plant.

Growing chives is a dream for beginners gardening herbs at home. I’m prime proof of how easy it is. In fact, for ease of growing I put them in the category of daylilies because they’re so indestructible no matter the amount of rain or scorching heat. I was clueless how to plant my chives plants (or any herb) in the garden when they arrived. Somehow they’ve survived in the clay soil of hot Kentucky summers for almost a decade now. You can even dig up their roots (actually little onion-like bulbs), divide them, and replant them just like daylilies! Although chives plants are best planted in a healthy mixture of soil, peat, sand and compost, my ignorance proves chives plants do well as long as they have plenty of sun and some water now and then.

In my accidental adventure growing herbs in my home garden, I discovered chives plants are perennial! That means, the plant dies back through the winter and sprouts new leaves in the spring. Perennials make a gardener’s life far easier simply because they DO automatically emerge every year without my help.

Also in the spring, the chives plant produces a bounty of beautiful purple “pom-pom” flowers that sprout up on tall stems. Who knew growing chives produced beautiful flowers as well? The flowers, similar in shape to the flowers in clover but bigger, can be used in dried ornamental bouquets, too. The bees happen to love those flowers. Just by growing my chives plants, there’s this added benefit of attracting the bees for pollinating some of my other garden plantings. The flowers are edible, but frankly I haven’t given that a try.

Another side benefit for my outdoor home garden is the chives plants actually protect my other plants and flowers from unwanted insects–like aphids. Insects apparently find chives to be repulsive. You can also use the juice of the leaves as a repellant. The juice is equally repugnant to pests. The chives plants themselves are very hardy and don’t seem to be prone to diseases (or pests).

Home Herb Garden Basics – Chives Culinary Side

Chives are chock full of vitamin A and C, plus calcium and iron. A great choice to flavor foods, cut chives are fat free and combine well with more than sour cream and cream cheese. I found them a winning alternative to salt seasoning. Harvesting chives is a simple task. Simply snip some of those leaves (the soft green shoots) down to the base. The chives plants will continue replenishing itself by regrowing the leaves continuously during its growing season.

Chop the leaves into smaller pieces and use them fresh. The oils of the plants are its seasoning source. By chopping the leaves, the oils are released to flavor your food along with an arresting aroma. Store what you don’t use in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for about a week. Postpone washing the chives until you use them. The extra moisture will make them wilt and decay rapidly.

Add them for flavoring to perk up your soups, sandwiches, fish, vegetable dishes, sauces, and salads. The vast variety of culinary uses can ignite those creative juices and rock your recipes.

 For instance, I have a friend whose family loves to enjoy ‘chives sandwiches’ every spring. Avoid the mistake of growing chives as a basic garden herb simply for a garnish…it’s so much more versatile. Try using them to make an herb vinegar. A low cost gift exhibiting your new talents in growing herbs in your home garden without revealing you’re a beginner!

Always remember that the harvesting of any produce is a two step process: gathering and storing. Storage needs planning, whilst gathering is usually arbitrary and depends on when you feel your plants to be ready.

One of the great benefits of herbs has always been their excellent storage capability without any great loss of their primary virtue. Using herbs from a home herb garden depends both on the type of herb and your intended usage; you need to prepare for one of several storage methods.  For aeons past herbs have been dried or pickled in salt or vinegar. Today we may add freezing to our storage arsenal. For instance, you can freeze culinary herbs in ice blocks for later use in stews and soups.

Using herbs from a home herb garden – rules of engagement – gathering.

There are some simple rules to follow when gathering or storing. The process is really not complicated. To gather effectively whilst preserving their virtues follow these rules:

1. In the week before gathering is to take place, avoid spraying any insecticide near plants.

2. A dry, balmy, moderate spell in June is your best option in Northern climes. (For Southern hemisphere gardeners this means around December)

3. Harvest in mid-morning to avoid excessive heat whilst harvesting.

4. Ensure target plants are insect-free.

5. Don’t be greedy. Remove 25% or less of any bushy plant to enable strong regrowth for later use. Discard damaged leaves or stems.

6. If possible, shelter the target plants with shade cloth the night before harvesting takes place. This should be placed over a frame to avoid contact with your plants.

Using herbs from a home herb garden – rules of engagement – storage and preservation.

We have already covered the choices here. (Drying, pickling or freezing) Let’s cover the how in broad terms. The most important thing when using herbs from a home herb garden is common sense; think about what you are about to do. If all went well with the harvesting, we now have a healthy batch of produce.

Storage method 1 – drying.

Preparation: Obtain a packet of rubber bands, a ball of string and some “s” shaped wire hooks.

Method: Take lengths of string and make ‘clotheslines’ in a shaded dry spot. Separate herbs to be dried into bunches comprising 5 to 10 stems. (Depending on type of herb – you will soon get a feel for quantities) Secure these together by twisting the rubber band around the base of the stems. Use the “s” wire hooks to hang the bunches on the ‘clotheslines’.

Storage method 2 – preserving.

Definitely my favourite way of using herbs from a home herb garden.

Preparation 1: Obtain several types of bottles with corks capable of a reasonably tight seal. (The following paragraphs will indicate what containers you will need) Steep clean fresh herbs in oil or vinegar. Rosemary, thyme, tarragon, mint, basil and sage all work well. Serve as a herb vinegar or use as a flavoured oil for cooking or salads. Create many similar ways of using herbs from a home herb garden by using your imagination.

Preparation 2: Obtain several types of containers with lids capable of a reasonably tight fit and a bag of coarse salt. Place herbs and salt in alternating layers in a container. (Old ice cream containers work for me) When all moisture is leeched out, remove herbs and use aromatic salt in table grinders.

Storage method 3 – freezing. A modern but effective way of using herbs from a home herb garden.

Preparation: Obtain a roll of wax paper and a wide flat container capable of use in a freezer.

Method: Tear or slice herbs into convenient sizes and place on layers of waxed paper in the wide, flat container. Place in freezer overnight. Remove container, discard wax paper and repack frozen herbs into more convenient freezer storage containers.

There are many variations to the above methods of using herbs from a home herb garden, but the first 2 have been used successfully for centuries (sans rubber bands, of course) and the freezing method is a simple one. Try these before you buy dehydrators or ruin your oven or microwave.

Sun is good for plants, especially for certain herbal products.

The windowsill garden is easy to make, cheap to make, fun to smell and of course, very conveniently located. When you create a windowsill herb garden your plants are all in one place and can be set in easy to carry containers or pots.  

Containers can be made from plastic or clay, and they should be medium size, anywhere from 6-12 inches deep.  The most important factor is whether or not they can allow for adequate drainage.  If the container isn’t constructed with easy drainage in mind, then the plant can suffer from waterlog and develop soil disease.  

How to Set Up a Windowsill Herb Garden

It is up to you whether you wish to use a large container for several plants or individual pots for each one.  However, your garden should be able to fit around the windowsill of your kitchen or any other room.  Ideally, you want to put this small garden by a window, as they will need plenty of sunlight.  (Fluorescent lights can be used as a substitute, with occasional direct sunlight)

What type of herbs should you grow?

Not all herbs can grow in this type of environment but many can, and the nursery will help you choose appropriate types.  Some of the most popular types of windowsill herbs include Oregano, rosemary, mint, chives, thyme, basic, parsley, sage and marjoram.  

The next step in creating your windowsill herb garden is to place these seeds in the container with soilless potting mix.  This mix contains natural materials that allow for easier drainage.  After firming, try and keep an inch of space between the very top of the container and the start of the soil.  You don’t want that much for watering especially considering that windowsill plants generally suffer from excessive moisture.  

Other Steps in the Process

When it comes to plant food, use fertilizer about once a month and make sure that it’s of the edible variety.  Like watering, don’t over fertilize; you want to keep the natural taste of the herb, and natural means a balanced amount of food and water.  

The entire process of starting your own windowsill herb garden should take less than 20 minutes (nursery travel time not included).  Stick to the nursery’s recommendation for types of herbs to grow—after all, even if some herbs could grow in good health, the small space of a windowsill herb garden might hinder growth for certain plants that grow taller or wider than others.

Creating your own indoor garden can keep your herbs close to you, improve the smell and visual aesthetic of your home and are very easy to create and maintain.   

For more information, look up windowsill friendly plants or ask customer service at the local nursery.

Kansieo.com