Your Indoor Herb Garden

By now you no longer think of herbs only as bits of dry seasoning, bottled and hidden on the kitchen shelves. There isn't a room in any house or apartment that won't be more attractive with fragrant herbs growing there.

If you are an apartment dweller, surrounded by concrete out of doors, you can have an indoor herb garden. In fact, you can grow almost as many varieties of herbs indoors as you could in an average-sized outdoor garden. On the other hand, if you have an herb garden outdoors, you will enjoy being surrounded by herbs inside too. For example, why not have a sweet scented geranium in your living room? These lovely plants were often found in Victorian parlors. Dittany of Crete (Origanum dictamus), immortalized by Virgil, was also popular. Both will fit into your home.

There are several ways to begin your indoor herb garden. You may bring plants in from your outdoor garden, if you have one; start plants from seeds, from cuttings or you may acquire the plants themselves from a friend, a florist or nursery, and then pot them. If you are starting new annuals to bring indoors, plant them late in the season outdoors and transplant before the first frost.

You may plant seeds of sweet marjoram, parsley, basil, dill, anise and coriander directly in your indoor containers. However, I have never had any trouble bringing plants of parsley and basil in from the garden. I choose small plants of basil, since they are apt to grow quite tall, and small parsley plants, since otherwise the taproot would be too deep to transplant.

If you want to grow chives and do not wish to divide your outdoor clump, buy another clump and set it in a bulb pan or low pot filled with light, sweet soil. Cut back the foliage and let new growth start. There is no need to waste the trimmings; chop them and freeze them.

Put the chives in a sunny window where they will not get too warm—55° to 60° Fahrenheit is best—and keep them on the dry side. One reason that so many people have trouble keeping chives growing through the winter is the heat of the kitchen.

In your outdoor garden you may have had some perennials such as rose geranium, rosemary and lavender which need the protection of the house during the winter. These plants are not easy to start from seed, nor are the plants themselves readily available. So, once started, you will not want to take the chance of letting them winter-kill. Bring them inside.

If your house space is limited, try this idea. Keep one rose geranium indoors and let it grow as large as it wishes, so that you can cut slips from it. I keep mine in one of the big round planters now so popular. Let the geranium be the focal point of the planter instead of the more usual cut-leaf philodendron, which almost every house plant owner has climbing up a center pole of spagnum moss. Why not be different ? Fasten the leggy branches of your rose geranium to the pole, and put your smaller herbs around it. If you want more vividness, tuck in a few artificial flowers. Give the planter a place on the floor or on a low table by a sunny window.

More gardening ideas.