Written by Cultivating herb plants indoors isn’t necessarily the simplest method to follow, but when the days get short and the frost blankets the rest of your outside plants, you will be glad that you have a few indoor plants. And the kitchen is the ideal place to cultivate your herbs, simply because that is where you are more likely to use them.
I have a big, southward window in my kitchen that allows full, rich sunshine to flow over my kitchen table on sunny days. That’s where I keep my herb plants over the winter, for convenience and because south-facing windows give better light. Some sunshine is better than none at all, so don’t fret if the window doesn’t face south.
It usually doesn’t do well to move your herb plants from outside to indoors so for the most success, I recommend that you begin with a potted plant from your local market, home improvement store, nursery or greenhouse. I usually just allow my annuals to go at the end of the season and get new, special indoor annuals for the winter.
That way I won’t ever have to do without my herbs and I do not have to go through all the drama about taking in an herb and letting it get leggy.
These are some of the herbs that I cannot seem to make it through the cold, harsh winter months without, including:
- Garlic: Be sure to plant garlic in your kitchen herb garden. Its pink and white flowers will add to the prettiness of your kitchen and can deter pesky insects from gathering. Make a floral arrangement of garlic flowers. They are pretty as can be and can last for several days. They will have a small scent of garlic flavor. Try them on a salad. When they start smelling garlicky, throw them out. If you get hungry, you can always eat your garlic buds.
- Rosemary: When you cook with rosemary, you are using one the most uniquely flavored plants around. You can pull off a couple of sprigs and toss them in with the rest of your ingredients. I remove the rosemary before I serve the dish, easy because I can’t take the tough pine-like leaves and I’m too lazy to crush them. But do not let that stop you from pulverizing it with a mortar and pestle or in the food processor.
- Basil: I can’t say enough about this wonderful plant, which I add to nearly every Italian dish I cook. Basil will sprout fast and prosper in your kitchen garden. Before you know it, you can start cutting off the leaves to use in your next lasagna. If you only have room for one basil herb plant, I suggest you buy the sweet basil kind because of its smell and taste.
- Parsley: Avoid the problems of growing parsley from seeds. Life is short, so buy it at the grocery and begin reaping the benefits. You can use parsley in almost every entrée, salad or vegetable, but promise me you won’t only use parsley as a decoration. It is so much better than that. One of the nice qualities of the parsley is that it heightens the flavors of any other herb used in the dish.
There’s no reason to stop with the kitchen either. Once you get your indoor garden going in the kitchen, move along to the living room and bedroom. There’s nothing like a cute tiny pot of lavender in the bedroom to help you go to sleep faster.
Excellent post as usual, thank you for writing such helpful stuff on a regular basis.