Indoor Kitchen Garden Design 1.1

It's so easy to set up an indoor herb kitchen garden because so many culinary herbs are well suited to growing both indoors and in recycled containers. Your ability to grow veggies in your organic kitchen garden starts with only a few simple recycled materials and the simple will to feed your family only the finest organic foods grown fresh in your designed kitchen garden.

Here are six easy to grow herbs without even trying; chives, thyme, mints, French tarragon, sweet marjoram and sage. As well, also think seriously about growing your own parsley, rosemary, nasturtiums and basil. So which ones do you plant and how do you grow them? It really depends firstly on which ones you would like to grow, how much you use of one or the other and then your budget, and of course the amount of well lit space you have.

The high tech "A-Garden" type with its own lights and gadgetry is great and really works well (you know the one it's advertised on TV everywhere), but it's not cheap and not very big. Whereas, at the other end of the budget is a set of recycled pots and containers with seedlings and your sunny windowsill, planter box or sunroom.

Something in-between these two extremes are the compartmentalised pots like the "strawberry pot", which is also great. Also in the middle are the grow veggies kit forms where you just add water and place in a sunny position and look after for a period of a few weeks. These are also absolutely great for those limited to space for your kitchen garden.

I personally do not recommend planting different herbs in the one single pot as the competition for growing space problems far outweighs the advantages of individual containers. If you do use the compartmentalised pots then try to mix the same general types of herbs together for the re-growth habits, height and moisture requirements.

The important thing is light, whether natural or artificial. Adequate light is essential to growing good herbs and veggies. If you don't have enough natural light then you'll need to supplement it with artificial light.

Why not consider making your own tiered shelving with its own lighting? I've seen it done and its particularly good in climates where it's dark for much of the year but indoors is continually nice and warm; or even consider using a skylight or solar tube, another inexpensive method of free natural lighting.

If you have a well-lit patio or sunroom where you grow dwarf fruit trees in containers (citrus, stone-fruits or pomegranates etc) then you can plant perennial herbs in the same pots with them such as rosemary, mints etc.

Because there are so many suitable herbs, you must decide which ones. Just remember to check the seedling labels to see how large they grow. Only plant the ones you have the room for in your own indoor herb kitchen garden. When it comes time to grow veggies consider using larger pots or deeper pots.

Everybody loves kitchen herbs, and if you're thinking of growing some we've picked a select few that most chefs agree are the best of the best. Their popularity among Captains of the kitchen can be stated in three words -- taste, fragrance, and beauty -- and for the beginning gardener, they are easy to grow.

Basil grows well in the kitchen because it loves the heat. Trim the plants and use the leaves in salads, stews, ground meats, poultry stuffing and any dish that includes tomatoes. Start basil from seeds, or from plants you can find at your local nursery.

Burnet is one of the prettiest plants. It has feathery leaves that trail which makes it a good choice for hanging pots. And the leaves are cucumber-flavored which make it a great addition to salads.

Chervil is a fine-leaved herb that looks like parsley and has anise-flavored leaves you can use for garnishing and to season soups, sauces, and salads. It will germinate quickly and can be grown from seed.