There are many reasons for learning how to start an indoor herb garden. First of all, an indoor herb garden lets you have fresh, organic herbs whenever you want them. Secondly, herbs add flavor, color, fragrance, and important nutrients to your food. Additionally, an indoor herb garden is an attractive, charming way to make a home look and smell more natural and inviting.
Many herbs are incredibly easy to grow indoors, and it’s a rewarding, money-saving activity. Here’s how to start an indoor herb garden.
How to Start an Indoor Herb Garden: The Best Herbs
While you can grow nearly any herb indoors if you are dedicated enough, it’s a good idea to start your indoor herb garden with herbs that grow well together.
These herbs are an excellent choice for beginning an indoor herb garden because they are popular in foods and recipes, tolerate growing in indoor containers. Because they grow in very similar light and water conditions, so your garden can thrive right away. If you are looking to start an indoor herb garden, the easiest would be to buy an indoor herb kit.
Here are some of the best choices for herbs to grow indoors:
Basil
Basil is a staple in Mediterranean and Thai cuisine and is best and most fragrant when used fresh rather than dried. It’s easy to cultivate indoors, tolerant of some neglect, and a staple of the herb garden.
Chervil
Chervil is essential in French cuisine and grows well indoors, where it can avoid predation from slugs, who are attracted to this plant. It’s a cool-season plant and will enjoy being shaded by other plants in an indoor herb garden.
Chives
Chives are beautiful and incredibly easy to grow, providing a wonderful flavor to all kinds of dishes. They also freeze well, making them simple to use all year long.
Cilantro/Coriander
Coriander is a delicate, tender green that you can use in traditional recipes from many countries. If allowed to go to seed, the plant produces coriander seeds. You can easily dry, grind, and use them differently from the leaves and stems. In many Asian countries, coriander roots are also a valued ingredient.
Dill
Dill is an essential part of many European culinary traditions, and both the fronds and seeds are popular flavoring ingredients. This plant needs full, warm sun to thrive, so it may not be suitable for all indoor herb gardens.
Mint
Mint is a hardy little herb that grows best in containers indoors to control its spreading tendency. It has a vast range of uses, from culinary to cosmetic, and grows quickly, producing a wonderful fresh scent.
Oregano
Oregano is a favorite in Mediterranean cuisine and grew popular in the US as the “pizza herb.” Mexican oregano is in a completely different plant family, with a distinct, robust flavor, but also takes well to being grown indoors.
Parsley
Parsley is one of the most common garnishes, but it’s also packed with nutrients and extremely good for you.
Rosemary
Rosemary can eventually turn into a large, woody shrub, but it is slow-growing and suitable for keeping in an indoor herb garden for a long time. This plant is a classic culinary herb with a distinct fragrance and flavor.
Tarragon
Tarragon is essential in many classic French dishes. And you can’t make a proper Bernaise sauce without it. Russian tarragon is a larger, tougher herb that is less flavorful than French tarragon but is easier to grow and thrives on neglect.
Thyme
Thyme is a close relative of oregano, and people throughout Europe and the Middle East use it regularly. Although the two herbs taste very different, they are easily grown together.
How to Start an Indoor Herb Garden
Environment
All the herbs above, except for dill and chervil, need the same environment to thrive.
- Bright sun, with at least 4-6 hours a day of direct sunlight. Dill needs a couple more hours of light, and chervil needs indirect light.
- Moist, well-drained soil.
In other words, find sunny south- or west-facing windowsills and remember to water your plants once a week. Do that, and you can successfully grow an indoor herb garden.
If you don’t have sufficient light indoors, these herbs will grow very well with the addition of a grow light. If you don’t want to invest in an expensive grow light, you can often affordably create your own with an under-cabinet light fixture and a full-spectrum fluorescent light tube.
Herbs are hardy plants but will not grow well in insufficient light. So, it’s worth spending some time to find the right spot or create a sunlight solution.
Growing Indoor Herbs
Although all these herbs have similar environmental needs, they don’t all start the same. For example, mint doesn’t breed true from seed, and is better propagated by cuttings.
Tarragon seeds are sterile, and the plant is best propagated by dividing.
Basil can grow from seed or cuttings. In other words, the best method depends on what kind of herb you are growing, but here are general principles:
How to Start an Indoor Herb Garden From Cuttings
One of the easiest ways to get started growing an indoor herb garden is by taking cuttings from plants you already have. Most herbs can be propagated from cuttings, and the process is relatively simple.
Start by filling a pot with well-draining soil. Then take a 4-6 inch cutting from a healthy plant, making sure to include a few leaves. Remove the bottom leaves, and dip the cut end in rooting hormone.
Plant the cutting in the pot, and water well. Place the pot in a sunny spot, and keep the soil moist but not soggy. In 6-8 weeks, your cutting should have rooted and be ready to transplant into a larger pot. With just a little effort, you can enjoy fresh herbs all year long!
The best herbs to grow from cuttings are:
- Mint
- Sage
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Basil
- Oregano
- Lavender
How to Start an Indoor Herb Garden From Seeds
Some herbs are best grown from seed, and can easily be germinated and moved to a larger pot when they are larger. To grow herbs from seed, prepare a tray or small pots with seed starting soil.
Place the pots in a warm room with ambient light, but away from direct sun, and cover them with plastic film to preserve moisture and humidity.
Plant 1-2 herb seeds per square inch of pot surface, and mist the soil regularly to keep it moist but not wet. Within 2-4 weeks, you will have little seedlings.
It’s best to keep the strongest half of the seedlings and discard half of them that are smaller or weaker.
The best herbs to grow from seed are:
- Basil
- Chives
- Cilantro
- Dill
- Parsley
- Oregano
- Sage
- Thyme
Parsley and cilantro are best grown from seed in large pots because they don’t react well to being transplanted.
From Plants
Of course, the easiest way to start an indoor herb garden is to simply purchase healthy plants at the garden center, farmer’s market, or online.
Harvesting Indoor Herbs
Once your herbs are 4-6 inches tall, you can begin harvesting them. In fact, many herbs react well to periodic harvesting, which has the effect of pruning them and creating a more vigorous plant. In fact, if you aren’t harvesting, you should be pinching.
How to Pinch Indoor Herbs
Once a week, look over your herb plants and snip off the very tip of the growing stems. This encourages the lower leaves and stems to grow, and makes a thicker, more vigorous plants. For annuals like basil and cilantro, they will stop growing delicious leaves once they are allowed to flower, so frequent pinching keeps them growing for longer.
How to Harvest Indoor Herbs
It’s best to pinch and to harvest with clean, sharp plant scissors. Ideally, you would set aside a pair of scissors specifically for your herbs, so they don’t get other food or other contaminants on them.
You can harvest your indoor herbs whenever you like, by snipping a stem of rosemary to add to a stew, or clipping some leaves of basil to garnish a salad.
As a rule, don’t harvest more than about 1/3 of any given plant at once, so that it can recover and continue to grow.
And remember that herbs are more flavorful when they haven’t been over-watered, so that the essential oils and compounds in the leaves are more concentrated.
How to Start an Indoor Herb Garden - The Wrap-up
Herbs are incredible plants. They add flavor and nutrition to foods, produce lovely fragrance in the home or garden, and are excellent plants for pollinators and beneficial insects.
Growing your own herbs can also save you grocery money every week. Provided you have a sunny windowsill, you can start an indoor herb garden in just a few days and be adding fresh herbs to your foods within a few weeks. It’s great for you, your home, your budget, and the environment!
