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Indoor Herb Gardening
You can be successful at indoor herb gardening if you pick the right herbs and/or create the right growing conditions. To begin with, there’s little point in trying to grow herbs that you don’t use in the kitchen for indoor herb gardening. You’ll require far too much sunshine and indoor gardens rarely have enough. Here’s a few thoughts for you. Before you bring any plant – herb or otherwise - indoors, spray with insecticidal soap several times two to three days apart. This will knock back the spider mites, white flies or associated aphids etc that might try hitchhiking into your kitchen for the winter. Insecticidal soap is an organic pest control recommendation. Rinse the plant well with the hose just before bringing it indoors. All indoor herb gardening efforts should be in the sunniest windowsill of your house – and preferably in the kitchen where you can easily take a snip or two when you need them. In the fall, dig your parsley plants up and pot them into a six-inch flower pot. Trim off dead leaves to improve the looks of the plant and make it house ready. (see note re insecticidal soap above). Feed with fish emulsion and put on your sunniest windowsill. Cut off leaves as needed for cooking and while it likes to be sunny, it also does quite well in cool temperatures. I like to feed the plant as I don’t want it to go dormant (parsley is a biennial) and I want it to continue producing leaves. When the parsley gets spindly and weak, toss it into your compost. It will only throw flowers and set seeds next year so it is really only useful for the single season. In the fall, dig up a clump of chives If you follow the guidelines above for chives, you’ll have a small clump of them actively growing for an extended time on yoru windowsill. Enjoy them but use sparingly, they are slow to regrow. This is simply an argument for using several clumps. Basil can be dug and repotted into six-inch pots if this is done carefully and the roots are not overly disturbed. You’ll find it will tend to get woody unless you keep it well cut. (and it might go woody even then) Do feed regularly and give it your best, sunniest windowsill. Harvest regularly. Most annual culinary herbs that you use in significant quantities can be taken indoors as above and an extended harvest obtained.
The perennial herbs such as thyme and oregano really do not do well when transplanted. These plants want a dormancy period and when you don’t give one in the declining light levels, they’ll go dormant anyway or dead.. whichever suits their purpose at the time. These are much better to harvest, dry and store for winter use. If you have indoor grow lights, annual herbs can be grown year round. The trick to doing that is to sow fresh seed every month or so in order to have herbs at all stages of growth and harvest. But a grow lamp will extend the useful life of the plant.
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