Grow a windowsill herb garden for a constant supply of fresh, fragrant leaves right through the year, without even having to leave the comfort of your kitchen!
Growing herbs indoors is the perfect solution for gardeners who are short of space. Most herbs flourish in a sunny spot, and they’re within easy picking reach for adding fabulous flavour to your daily meal. There’s a wide range of herbs that are suitable for indoor growing, including parsley, chives, marjoram, mint and rosemary: pop into the garden centre here in Uppingham and you’ll find a variety of delicious herbs to choose from. Alternatively, just dig up a few clumps from the garden to pot up: mint responds particularly well to this treatment, staying green for much longer indoors than it does in the garden.
Matching pots set your windowsill herbs off to perfection and make a stylish and pretty display. Remember to add some multipurpose potting compost to your trolley while you’re here so that you can pot them up for your windowsill as soon as you get home.
From spring onwards you can start sowing pots of annual herbs, too. We stock seed for fast-growing herbs which enjoy the warmth of windowsill life, like basil, parsley, chervil, coriander and dill. Sow direct onto the surface of damp compost, quite sparingly to give each seedling enough space within the clump. Once they reach around 25cm tall, pot them on as a group into a larger pot. There’s no need to transplant them individually, and potting them on together means you don’t disturb the roots unnecessarily. Keep sowing new potfuls every month to give yourself a continuous supply.
Snip the tips from your herbs regularly to keep the plant healthy and encourage lots of young shoots and a steady supply of delicious fresh herbs to turn your cooking from good to gourmet.