Decorative Edible Gardening for the Kitchen Windowsill

An indoor windowsill kitchen garden can provide fresh, healthy herbs for cooking in the most convenient location possible: your kitchen. For beginners starting their first edible kitchen garden, here are some tips you can use to ensure your gardening is a success and provides many helpings of healthy homegrown flavors.

Buy Edible Herbs in Plant Form

Forget growing from seed; pick up an edible herb plant for your local grocery story produce section or farmer's market and you will have a healthy plant you know will produce for some time to come. To tell which herbs are going to last on your kitchen windowsill, take a look at the roots.

Black clumps of slimy roots indicate a problem, while a visible set of healthy roots can indicate a plant that is ready for transplantation into an attractive container garden. To keep things beautiful in your herb garden, look for plants growing in an attractive formation that fits well into your garden setup.

Plan Windowsill Garden Layout for Health and Beauty

When picking plants for your kitchen windowsill garden, you need to consider the healthiest environment for plants while also planning planting to include plants that are attractive and tasty. For beginning herb gardeners starting out with a first windowsill garden, it can be most beneficial to choose several varieties of similar plants that you know you like to use. This is for two reasons.

Grouping similar plants means easier care

Plants can benefit from being grouped with other plants that require similar care. If you know you like a certain type of plant, gathering several different varieties of that edible plant can make care easier. Plants with different needs for soil consistency and watering need to be planted in different containers, or one of the plants will certainly die from underwatering or overwatering.

Growing multiples means extras to share

The other reason is aesthetic beauty; if you only plant one type of plant that you like to use in your food, you will eat the whole thing and it will no longer be attractive or healthy. To avoid decimating a favorite plant in your kitchen windowsill garden, plant more than one plant of each type you know you tend to frequently use, especially if that variety of edible plant tends to grow slowly.

Supplement light if necessary

Sometimes, a garden in a window does not get enough light. If plants seem wilty despite healthy fertilizer and watering, they may be suffering from a lack of light. For window gardens, a few mounted light bulbs about a foot away from the plant can help supply enough light to make up for the deficiency in sun.