The Windowsill Experiment - Growing Edible Plants Indoors

[Lulu]

or children with water pistols

[Rouge]

Also if you've been on my deck in summer... you'll understand it's hotter there than in the sun. I promise I watered. And besides... you don't think I'm that daft to think that just because they are inside they don't need to be watered? Do you? LOL!

And I'll be sure to keep you all posted with my windowsill experiment

[somewoman]

have you thought of doing a vertical garden bed? You can hang it from the wall like wall art and you should be able to grow heaps of herbs in that. You can keep them simple and use a sprayer to water the herbs, or go a little fancier and rig up a frame with a small pond pump to syphon water from a reservoir in the base back to the top (which will then filter through the growing medium, watering all the plants and gather again at the base ready for pumping back to the top!!) - people generally use something like shade cloth to keep the soil or other growing medium trapped in place and cut holes in it to fit the herbs in. You can make them yourself or spend LOTS of money buying ready made.

Just a thought for if you run out of room on your windowsill Growing your own herbs can get very addictive, and uses a lot of space when you start growing everything that you want!

[Nelle]

Somewoman!! (warning, minor hijack) Tell me HOW!! Do you know how to do that? Have you done it? Can you do that indoors?

[Gigi]

Mulching around herbs helps e.g peastraw. (to lower evapouration rates, act as a weedmat too).

in our recent 40 plus temps, i have discovered, EVEN IN FULL BAKING SUN ZERO SHADE (my backyard), rocket and lemon balm seem indestructible. to my amazement.

but lots of the other herbs turned to brown potato crisps (died). So the indoor herb garden idea sounds great to me.

i want to grow lemongrass, chives and basil the most (to cook with). the last few summers have all been heatwave summers (many over 35 degree days,weeks) which have massacred all my basil attempts.

i would love to see a photo blog on "how to make the vertical herb planter thingy" out of shadecloth or whatever you make it out of. Shadecloth is so expensive, i'd love to know how much to get and how to use it wisely.

[maz]

dame woman if I lived closer I could give you some garlic chive plants...those buggers grow like no other.

Its so funny you start this thread cause I was saying to jed the other night that I owuld LOVE one of other kitchen windows designed especially so you can grow herbs inside..I think that would be so cool.

Ive got a window box that im currently trying to grow cherry tomatoes in, a hanging pot with a strawberry plant and another with lettuce growing, all out my front door on my little verandah (my front door is straight out of my kitchen.

I just make sure that I water regularly and I do this by keeping a 2L jug in my kitchen sink so when I wash a cup out or my hands it catches the water and when its full I can water my plants. Not wasting water and my plants are getting it...2 positives.

Id be saying just watch the after noon sun cause it coming through a window can be leathal

[Rouge]

Thank you maz That was just the advice I was after.

My spring onions are still going strong and I'll probably get some herbs this weekend and then I'm going to start taking photos

[somewoman]

Somewoman!! (warning, minor hijack) Tell me HOW!! Do you know how to do that? Have you done it? Can you do that indoors?

LOL! =)))

I haven't done one yet myself - waiting for our house to be built (but we will have one as soon as we're there!!). It's one of my first planned projects =) And yes, you can do it indoors if you have an appropriate location for your plants of choice

you can do a web search on vertical herb garden and it will return heaps of results and images. A good one to look at for inspiration is The Garden Gurus - TV: Gardening Channel - in the "soil and improvement" section you will find vertical herb garden - they give a basic description of how to put one together. You don't need to do it as big as what they have (and you could also change the shape according to the area that you have), but it gives an idea on how to get it going.

You could also do it using different materials - both in construction or in growing medium (soil versus rockwool, etc). Some people make them partitioned into sections for each plant, but the partitions need to allow water to pass through if you want to use a pump to create a reticulated watering system in it.

If you're handy, it really wouldn't take much! Once you have the basic thought and design in your head you can go from there =) Would love to see what you do if you decide to make one! =)

[maz]

Have started a FB albulm of my gardening adventures

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for those who are interested

[Nelle]

Rouge I saw a book on windowsill gardening yesterday and wondered how you were going. Have you started much or are you still in the planning stages?