Thursday, August 12, 2010

How To Grow Herbs Inside In Containers

How to grow herbs inside in containers, for year round use.

If you like herbs and you want to spice up your cooking and salads, it is possible to have them year round whenever you want to use them. Just reach to your windowsill, and pinch off a few leaves of the herbs you grow, and enjoy the best and freshest flavor you can think of.

There is a pretty vast list of how many herbs you can grow, but you can just choose the ones that you really like and use in your kitchen, whenever you like, when you have company over, and you are sure to impress them, as you will get a lot of compliments on your cooking.

The herbs are grown from seeds, and there are annual, perennial, and biennial herbs. A few examples of annual herbs first, would be some that are most commonly used, but you can pick any you love the most.

Arugula Astro, Arugula Rocket, Basil Caesar, Basil Picolino, Basil Pluto, Basil Sweet Dani, Basil Siam Queen, Cilantro Santo, Dill Bouquet, Dill Fernleaf, Sweet Marjoram, etc.

Perennial herbs: Garlic Chives, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Peppermint, Rosemary, Green Sage, Winter Thyme, etc.

Biennial herbs: Parsley Banquet, Parsley Forest Green, Parsley Plain Italian Dark Green, etc.

These are just a few examples of the many herbs you can choose to grow.

As I mentioned above that the herbs are grown from seeds, here is how to grow them.

Like in any gardening, be it outdoors or indoors, the first most important faze is the preparation of the soil. This is the base and the place where the seeds are buried, and germinate to spring to life, and live. So some basic conditions must be met. And the soil is very important to be of the best quality possible, if we want to succeed, and create the best environment for the the plants to live in.

The soil must be of a good quality, nutritious, rich in minerals, for the plants to develop and grow healthy.

For the herb seeds, it is necessary to have a fine peat-moss blend of soil with micro-nutrients for a good start, from your local Garden Center. If you are going to grow them in a windowsill, for the source of sun light, the preferred size of the plastic pots would be 4 to 6 inch wide, round or square.

Once you have the soil, the pots and the seeds, that's all you need to start your indoor herb garden.

Fill the containers with the soil all the way up to the lip of the pot, leaving about half inch from the very top of the pot. Take a pinch of herb seeds, and drop them evenly on the top of the soil. Cover the seeds very thinly with soil, and with a fine mist water the soil slowly, to make sure the water penetrates down in the soil. Set them on the windowsill, and you are done. Water and keep the soil moist. Do not let it dry out completely! In a few days, you will see the little herb plants sprouting out of the soil.

Once the herbs have grown to a certain height, keep watering, but make sure that you water gently, by poring the water in a corner of the pot, so that only the soil gets wet. The herb plants are still tender, so be gentle with them.

If you like spicy hot food, you can grow some hot peppers in a pot. But you need only one seed, and it would be better to start the pepper seeds in a cell pack, like a jumbo 6 pack. Once the seed sprouted and they have some real leaves, you can transplant the pepper plant in a 6 inch size pot or larger.

Another solution for the indoor garden is a 'garden tub', if you prefer to have just one long tub with all the herbs in one confinement. so, once the herbs developed enough, you can move them in the garden tub (in size like the width of the windowsill), one by one.

Fill up the tub with the same fine soil, and take each herb out of the original pot, with the soil intact, and plant it in the tub.  Keep your little garden watered, and just keep it moist, not soggy, and do not let the herbs dry out completely.

Now you have a beautiful aromatic, flavorous garden at your finger tips. Enjoy the freshest and most tasteful flavour that you ever have experienced in your salads, and your specialty cooking.

Pinch some leaves whenever you like and live well and healthy. These herbs are very rich in vitamins and minerals, and that's a fact.

Happy indoor gardening!

Until next time,

Grand-paw Mike

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