Windowsill Gardening With Herbs
By Bob Chapman
Herbs have been used by humans for millenniums for their supposed curative abilities and as a seasoning for foods. Herbs have been in use for many, many thousands of years as an integral part of the landscape or the garden. Many good cooks use herbs to add a delicious flavor to the dishes that they cook and serve.
What herbs need to grow indoors.
-Light. Herbs prefer being grown where lots of bright light is found, hence the reason it's called "windowsill gardening.". If you grow flowering plants successfully, you can grow herbs. If you can't provide the necessary light, a successful alternative is fluorescent lighting, preferably using four tubes. Use grow lights or two cool-white and two warm-white bulbs. These are easy to set up and require no special wiring.
-Temperature, humidity and air movement. These are factors to consider when growing herbs indoors. Most herbs do well in homes with 60-70 degree temperatures in daytime and about 10 degrees cooler at night. Sometimes the air in the home is drier, so providing humidity is essential. Setting the pots on a tray of gravel or on individual saucers half-full of gravel, filling them up to the top (but not any higher) your herbs will be happy. If there is poor air circulation in the kitchen, the use of a small fan will help.
-Soil. Use a commercial potting mix, such as OSH Planter Mix.
-Water. Keep the soil moist, but not saturated. Let the soil dry slightly between waterings. Use the "finger test." Stick your finger into the soil and if it comes out dry, with no particles clinging to it, then water the pot. If soil clings to your finger, the pot won't need watering at that time.
-Fertilizing herbs. Use a water-soluble fertilizer such as "Miracle-Gro," following directions for the constant feeding method. Thus you will be giving the plants a little bit of food each time you water them, a win-win situation for healthy, robust herbs.
Herbs for the windowsill garden.
Here's seven great herbs that grow very well indoors, providing a ready source of fresh leaves. The cook only needs to reach over and pick the amount needed for flavoring.
-Basil. This very popular, tender annual herb is used with sauces, in salads, as a garnish and is also grown for its ornamental qualities. When sweet, green basil is blended with pine nuts, oil and cheese it becomes a prime ingredient in pesto. This sauce is used with spaghetti and added to soup, vegetable dishes, fish and stews. The list of dishes that basil is used is long: tomato soup, bean soup, spiced-meat dishes, with any kind of chicken, scrambled eggs, potato salad, many vegetables and of course, tomato sauce. Many use the herb in potpourris.
This fast-growing and heavily used herb can have seeds sown at three week intervals, thus providing a year ‘round source for the cook. When the seedlings have developed three or four sets of leaves, cut the stem off just above a node (the place where the leaves join the stem). Two stems will develop from the node. When those side stems develop several sets of leaves, pinch them back in the same way. Thus your plant will keep producing leaves and prevent flowering, which will result in bitter-tasting leaves.
-Parsley. This biennial plant is most often used as a garnish, but this very popular herb has a flavor that combines well with many dishes, adding its bright color and fresh taste to soups, stews, in sauces for pasta and vegetable dishes, as an herb butter for bread, used in fish, poultry and green salads. European cooks dip parsley clusters in butter and fry them. In England they make parsley jelly to use as a supplement or to accompany roast meat and chicken. Many cooks use the leaves with salads, sandwiches and eggs.
An additional benefit when using parsley is that this herb is a great source of iron, calcium and vitamins A, B and C.
Purchase parsley in cell packs and transplant to a larger pot. You'll be able to harvest parsley much sooner.
-Chives. Almost every cook is familiar with this member of the onion family, along with scallions, shallots, garlic, leeks and regular onions. Chives were used to flavor food in China in 3,000 B.C. and were a popular cooking herb in ancient Greece and Rome. This perennial bulb will produce leaves for cooking for many years, given the proper care. The herb will probably not blossom (round, golf ball-sized, pink and fuzzy looking) but the decorative foliage will give plenty of healthy leaves (slightly tubular in form) for use in the kitchen.
Chives are used at the end of cooking as their mild onion flavor and pretty green leaves sprinkled on boiled potatoes, cream soups, scrambled eggs and steamed carrots and cauliflower. Chopped into small bits and mixed with cream cheese makes a delightful spread on crackers. Use cut segments of chives with green salads or use the entire stems as a garnish.
-Cilantro or Coriander. Cilantro and coriander are the same plant (Coriandrum sativum), an annual, but coriander is referred to as the seeds while cilantro leaves are used as a flavoring when added to foods. To be even more confusing, it is only certain older leaves of the plant that is used in the kitchen. These lower, older leaves are flat, roundish and have scalloped edges. The newer leaves, those near the top of the stems, are lacy and feathery. The plant produces tiny white flowers in masses and clusters at the top of the stems and these, in turn, turn into the tiny round seeds used and sold as coriander.
Coriander (the seeds) has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and the plant is mentioned in the Old Testament. It was written up in an Egyptian medical text that was written when Moses was a young man. It was one of the bitter herbs for the celebration of Passover.
Coriander seed is used in many, many dishes. Coriander adds an unusual flavor to gingerbread, cakes, cookies, sweet yeast breads, baked apples and fruit salads. It is also used with poultry stuffing, spicy meat mixtures, meat loaf, stews and sausages. It is the traditional flavoring for cooked beets and is used in many soups and casseroles. Some find that the crushed seeds are a delight when added to coffee or hot chocolate.
Cilantro (the leaves) have an entirely different flavor. Known for its spicy, peppery tingling feeling on the tongue, it has long been used in Oriental or Mexican dishes. It is increasingly popular and used by many cooks. Fresh leaves are used in salads, salsa, marinades, stir-fries, rice, pasta, vinegars and in shellfish dishes.
-Thyme. This perennial plant is widely used as a landscape plant, in herbal medicines and in cooking. There are both upright forms and the familiar creeping forms. Thyme is known as a "blending" herb because to pulls flavors together. It is used in salads, stocks, soups, stews, stuffings, sauces, vinegars, beef, pork, poultry, seafood, sausages, vegetables, honey, butters, cheeses, eggs, rice, grains, breads or beans. Its flowers are used in salads or as garnish. Thyme enhances spaghetti sauce, meat loaf and hamburgers, stuffing for chicken or turkey and is used in almost all vegetables. Use sparingly as it has a powerful, spicy taste.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) has tiny, tiny leaves and the tiny flowers and there are several varieties that cooks use. Lemon thyme has a very lemony taste and smell. Those with variegated leaves have several names. The thyme with white and green leaves is known as silver thyme. Golden thyme features yellow and green leaves and woolly thymes have gray-green and fuzzy leaves. Not to be outdone, there are those varieties that have special scents such as nutmeg thyme, caraway thyme, oregano thyme and orange balsam thyme (yes, they do smell like their namesakes!)
-Sweet Marjoram. This herb (Origanum majorana) has a spicy-sweet flavor. It is a slightly milder version of its relative, oregano. The small leaves of this small perennial (it is treated as an annual, replaced every year) are sweetly pungent and the plant features small, knotted white flowers at the tips of new growth. Along with basil and oregano, sweet marjoram is considered one of the three main cooking herbs that is used in Italian cooking. The leaves are used in salads, cheeses, fish, beef, pork, meat loaf, stews, scrambled eggs, sausages, tomatoes, cabbage-family vegetables, potato soup (or any other soups), cottage cheese, butters, or vinegars. Marjoram is added near the end cooking. The leaves are thrown on the grilling coals.
-Oregano. This herb is one of the most widely used in cooking. It has a cousin, sweet marjoram and its flavor is very close to it, although quite a bit stronger. Oregano is a perennial, with upright stems (sometimes lax) with velvety, ½-2 inch-long oval leaves. It features small, edible flower clusters in summer to early autumn. There are two forms of oregano, the Greek and the compact oregano, that are most often used as a cooking herb. It is an important seasoning in Italian, Spanish and Mexican foods. If you've ever eaten spaghetti or pizza, you're familiar with the taste of oregano. The leaves of oregano are used with salads, with cheeses, eggs, tomato sauces, chili, hamburger, squash, eggplant, marinated vegetables, roasted and stewed beef, pork, poultry (or game birds) beans, shellfish, soups, vinegars, pastas or butters.
Tips and suggestions
-There are hundreds of herbs in the world. The above are but a few that are grown indoors. Have a favorite herb? Why not try growing it indoors. You may not be successful, but you'll not know if you don't try.
-Refer to cookbooks for the amounts to use of the seven herbs listed above on the dishes prepared.
-Purchase your windowsill herbs in 4-inch pots and move them up to larger ones as they grow. There are lots of retail establishments that sell them, so you'll have little trouble locating a source.