Are you thinking of starting an indoor home garden? Climbing costs and crazy chemical coatings on grocery produce are creating fast fans flocking to join you. Planting an edible garden indoors to grow some of your own vegetables and herbs all year is a low cost alternative for safer healthier produce. No more worrying about chemicals or worse...scary bacteria like E. Coli on your food.
Getting started can stump you...sure happened to me. So to help you dive into diggin' your first dirt, here are 3 kitchen herbs I discovered were great to grow as starters for my own indoor home garden.
Starting with an indoor herb container garden makes the most sense for lots of reasons. Here are a few:
easier to grow than most other plants
require little attention, easy care
add kick to your cooking
add aroma to your home
decorative as well as culinary
few pest issues, not disease prone
swift savings in your pocketbook
low cost to start and maintain
continually replenish themselves after cuttings
Time to get started with these 3 exciting herbal additions as a foundation of your glorious first indoor home garden adventure.
1- Chives Talkin'Chives plants have to be my all time favorite for anyone's maiden plunge into planting their own indoor home garden...or frankly any beginner garden. These emerald green gems are forever forgiving of beginner blunders.
A perennial herb, chives produce a purple 'pom-pom' type flower that is also edible in addition to the long chives leaves. Chives survive any manner of neglect and conditions. You really can't hurt this herb. My kinda plant! But, please give them lots of light. They are sun lovers.
Their onion-like flavor is deliciously subtle but rich. Far superior to the dried store counterparts. Chives herbs are vastly more versatile than as an addition to sour cream. The chopped leaves are perfect for flavoring soups, eggs, butter, salad, and vegetable dishes.
2-Dill Discoveries
Since dill grows easily from seed, you can plant your dill seeds directly into a container of potting mix. Dill is another sun lover and considered a 'calming herb'. Feel stressed? Snip some dill out of your indoor home garden and chew it to calm yourself! Mother nature's way to relieve tension.
Dill's gentle light green fronds grow atop thin stems. Chopping up both provides a much milder flavor than what you may be accustomed by using the dried version. Dill is an herb delighting creative cooks because of its diverse uses. Familiar with dill pickles? But did you know you can make a dill vinegar? Other seasoning choices for dill are butters, cakes, bread, fish, soups (try it on potato and leek soup!), and vegetable salads.
3-Basil Is Never Boring
For Italian cooking, basil is essential as part of your indoor home garden! Basil seeds happen to be extremely easy to germinate in moist warm potting soil. Since it's a sun worshiping annual herb, locating your indoor home garden in your kitchen is perfectly suited for basil's ideal hot and dry conditions.
Instead of the more popular green leaf variety, consider growing purple leaved basil for a dash of color indoors from your home garden. The scent is another way to experience basil. Rub your fingers across the leaves and your senses will make your mouth water.
Basil leaves flavor pasta sauces, stews, soups, poultry and other meat dishes. Use basil stems and leaves to create an out of this world vinegar. Mix the basil vinegar with your fav oil and add to a salad of fresh quartered tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.
Another treat for your taste buds is a basil herb butter. In a food processor mix butter and basil leaves. Firm it up in the fridge. Pat some on fresh corn on the cob...ooh la la land!
Your herb indoor home garden can be a group of small containers with one herb plant per pot or simply a single container large enough to hold several herb plants. Hopefully this has inspired you out of your hesitation and you are ready to join the legion of urban farmers of the indoors edible garden by growing kitchen herbs.
Giddy to grow but stalled on how to start your indoor home garden? Follow these simple steps to indoor vegetable gardening on a spartan budget that coach you through learning to grow your own food. Bypass costly beginner mistakes and keep those plants thriving. You'll be dining on food flavored with fresh herbs free from chemicals plucked from your very own home garden. A whole lot healthier for you and your pocketbook!
Puzzled by prepping the soil? Confused about the care and feeding to keep your veggie and herb plants growing? Get more tips and discoveries in the dirt about indoor vegetable and herb gardening to grow your own.
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