Herbal remedies
Growing your own herbs can brighten up your windowsill as well as your food, writes David Overend.
What do you do when there’s snow clinging to the kitchen window and you can’t pop to the supermarket for the mint, the marjoram, or the rest of the herbs you need to turn a modest meal into a savoury feast? Easy – plant pots in the kitchen window.
They needn’t be huge, just small containers you can move around to make the most of the site and situation and which can still hold plenty of parsley or even a modicum of mint.
You don’t need loads of space to grow herbs – some are small, compact and will grow happily in a small area. Find the best site for what you want to grow. And if there isn’t much space, don’t worry, because many herbs are adaptable, they will grow in most sites and situations. Just remember that many come from hot countries where the rainfall is low and the soils are poor. Indoors, with warm air and good light they should be quite happy.
They don’t need a fertile soil (there are exceptions, of course) and they don’t need a moisture-retentive soil. Just start them off in a decent compost in the sunniest spot you can find. Add a bit of fine gravel to help with drainage. And make sure the container is relatively free-draining.
Why grow herbs indoors when shops and supermarkets offer them, relatively cheaply, all year round? Because it’s fun.
Many herbs will survive happily indoors, and if they are on the kitchen windowsill, they are handily placed for any culinary adventure. Basil is the perfect example while rosemary is another hardy beast and a well-established specimen should survive indoors, although it may not produce as much foliage as when it can enjoy the benefits of a summer outdoors.
Parsley is usually happy in a pot on the kitchen windowsill. It’s one of the easiest of herbs to propagate from self-seeded plantlets, so there should never be a shortage.
Mint can also be put into pots and brought indoors or grown on in the greenhouse. It won’t grow unless it lives in a really temperate spot, but it should provide a few leaves.
Sage and thyme should also potter along. Bay trees, of course, are among the toughest of all herbs, and a small, wellestablished specimen can be the star of an indoor containerised herb garden.
■ Last weekend in my ‘open gardens’ article, I mistakenly said Ellerker House is open today, it is in fact open tomorrow.