Sick of No Fresh Herbs... Time for an Indoor Herb Garden

[Spinaker]

I was thinking of making a hanging herb garden for my south facing windows. I have seen a few online that hang down from the window frame. Although, I do worry about the cold window pane being so close to the plants, more so at night when I would not have the solar energy to keep those plants warm.

[Ann-Marie in the backyard]

I'm getting started with an indoor herb garden myself. Just waiting for the seeds to come in. Oh, and I need to find a small rosemary plant -- they're very hard to start from seed, as somebody wise upthread said.

We have a goofy black cat with a taste for any kind of plant, so I can't keep them in the kitchen window or anywhere else in the house. We do, however, have a new small pop-up greenhouse that fits in our windowed-in back porch, and that's where they will go, complete with grow-lights and seedling mats until they get themselves established.

Thanks for the mention of lemongrass -- I can never find that in stores, and it looks like Baker Creek has seeds.

[Michael Brinton]

Great ideas for indoor herbs. I don't know if there are smaller lemon grass cultivars available, the lemon grass I grew outside last year stunned me how giant it got. By the end of the season it filled the entire herb garden. All the others stay manageable with some trimming.

[jhoskins]

Didn't know Lemongrass grew like a weed so much! Mint basically took over our herb garden a year ago... the most resilient non-weed I have ever seen.

[Michael Brinton]

Definitely right those mint runners are aggressive. The lemon grass got tall maybe with the indoor lighting it would keep it from getting that high. The top 2 feet was leaves anyway. I wasn't good on trimming either.

[MilerPip]

I can't say that I have a big success with an indoor garden. I have tried several times to plant some basilica and oregano flowers, but I didn't manage to grow them. Can you tell me some tips that will help? I don't know what the problem is, but all the time plants dry after one month even if I used to water them correctly. At first, I thought that the problem was in seeds, but after buying them from 3 different stores it didn't help. I have even bought a good pair of garden shares, I don't know why because they are useless for me, but I just wanted to have a special pair of scissors for my plants. I will be very glad if you will help me.

[MBMorgan]

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/aerogarden.html

check this out. It’s expensive, but I think it may be a good solution for you.

Good recommendation! Our son gave us one just over a month ago and I can attest to the fact that setup was a breeze and that it is a prolific little producer of fresh herbs as long as you keep up with simple maintenance (daily watering, pruning as needed (dill grows at the rate of 1-2" per day, and feeding every two weeks). There is also the apparent need to prune roots once in a while ... but we haven't gotten there yet). Each unit is pretty small (room for six plants in ours) and if you're a big user of herbage, you could easily find yourself needing more than one. You might also find that a dehydrator makes sense as you look for ways to not waste all the pruning that you'll find yourself doing.

Here's a couple of pics at 21 and 37 days:





Note that there was a LOT of dill-pruning done between the two pics.

All-in-all, highly recommended ...