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Indoor Herb Garden

One of the best and more practical solutions for those wanting herbs year-round is to plant an Indoor Herb Garden, which is not as hard to build and maintain as many people may think. Besides, the Indoor Herb Garden may serve as an occupational activity or just become a hobby to share with your family, particularly with kids who will enjoy growing their own herbs.

Start an Indoor Herb Garden is as easy as selecting a nice container as large as the space available for it in your home, but considering modern apartments with reduced space, the container must be big enough to hold several plants and provide good drainage. You may select from different materials including plastics, but the most recommended are clay, wood or ceramic pots that work well.

Another option making you own Indoor Herb Garden inside small apartments or even for decorating purposes in a big house are the use of multiple containers placed around, preferably in your kitchen or in areas nearby windows, all of them with a different kind or herb. If you already have herbs in your garden, divide them in two for use some inside.

Autumn is the best time to do divide perennial herbs such as sage, mint, parsley, and chives, placing back some of them into the outdoor garden and pot one or two as part of your Indoor Herb Garden, bringing plants indoors prior to frost.

However, take in mind that tender perennials including sage, bay, rosemary, pineapple and others, can be killed by a hard frost, so they are best grown in pots year round. Besides, your Indoor Herb Garden has to be set where the herbs can get maximum sunlight to encourage growth.

When growing herbs in desert-like climates, supplemental watering is necessary, but never in temperate zones because the excess of water which could rot the plants or promote worms. Protect also the crown of over wintering perennials with a loose covering of straw, and water just occasionally to reduce the chance of winter kill.

Several perennial herbs grow for more than one season, including sweet marjoram, thyme parsley, mint, sage, and chives. Annual herbs include chervil, coriander, oregano, basil and dill. So always when possible, start annual herbs from seed and perennial herbs from young plants, but parsley is recommended to be grown from seed.

If you are planning to set your Indoor Herb Garden totally from seed, purchase seed from national seed companies at Garden supply stores, supermarkets or another outlets. This guarantees you the quality of the seed, improving your chances to grown all of them successfully.

Some experts recommend to plant the herbs outdoors and let them grow for awhile, then move the containers indoors before the first frost, transplanting them to smaller containers for indoor growth if necessary. Once your Indoor Herb Garden starts to grow, gather herbs in the morning, just after early dew has evaporated.

Even if you are not planning to use them on a daily basis for cooking, gathering herbs regularly encourage the Indoor Herb Garden growth, and you can easily dry the herbs to store them for later use, year round. Dried herbs can last stored for years to come but store best for up to a year keeping the most of their flavor.

If you observe light deterioration in your Indoor Herb Garden, determine if it is occurring by excess or lack or natural light. While some herbs needs sun, moving them behind a window where the morning sunlight will fall down on them is enough, some others may need ceramic jars or darkened glass containers to help protect the herbs against deterioration.

Outdoors or indoors, herbs grow well in temperate areas, flavoring our foods with their leaves and seeds and filling the kitchen, or wherever you set your Indoor Herb Garden, with aromatic essences, eliminating or neutralizing household cooking or smoking odors. Aroma in herbs comes from oils in the cell walls of the plants.

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