Grow Your Own Indoor Herbs
Salt Lake City Green joined forces with KUTV2 this morning to show viewers how easy it is to grow your own indoor herb garden! View the segment.
Tools
- Planter – choose one with excellent drainage.
- A few of your favorite herbs – we love basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley and thyme.
- Watering can
- Potting soil – use a few rocks at the bottom of your planter to improve drainage.
Getting Started
If you are a novice gardener or don’t have much of a green thumb, growing an indoor culinary herb garden is an easy place to start. Most herbs are sun worshipers, so all you need to get started is a nice, sunny place in your home.
Plant
- Start with a container large enough to accommodate growth.
- Fill the pot with soil three quarters of the way full.
- Moisten the soil
- Remove herbs, loosen soil.
- Place herbs in pot and fill with enough soil to cover the root ball.
- Pat the soil down lightly and water well.
Care
- Light is the most important element in growing indoor herbs. Find a spot that gets at least 6-8 hours of light a day.
- Herbs growing long stems and few leaves are probably not getting enough light and are stretching to find it.
- Water each herb according to its individual needs. To avoid over watering, only water your herbs when you see them start to wilt. This should be about once a week.
- Regular clipping will promote further growth, so use your herbs frequently. But don’t cut more than a third off at one time.
- If your herbs start flowering, they are not being clipped enough!
Enjoy!
Growing your own indoor herbs is an easy way to jazz up your cooking and experiment with new flavors — all while saving money. Just remember that fresh herbs have a 3:1 ratio, which means that you should use three times the amount of fresh herbs compared to their dry counterparts.
Bridget Stuchly with SLCGreen shows KUTV2’s Mary Nickles how to plant an indoor herb garden.
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