Growing Culinary Herbs

Growing culinary herbs takes only a sunny windowsill or garden patch, plants or seeds, water and soil. You can grow tasty culinary herbs such as basil, rosemary and chives on a kitchen windowsill or plan an elaborate gourmet garden. You can even grow your own herbs for herbal teas, tisanes and medicinal teas, too.

Growing Culinary Herbs Indoors and Outside

There are many popular culinary herbs you can grow both indoors and outside.

Light Requirements

The biggest requirement to grow herbs is light, and plenty of it. Most herbs require six hours or more of direct sunlight per day. Some, such as oregano and mint, can tolerate dappled light in the afternoons but most thrive with full, bright, direct light.

Temperature

If growing herbs indoors, regular household temperatures around 70 degrees are perfect. Planting herbs outside should be done in late spring and summer, since most need warm days and cannot tolerate frost or prolonged cold temperatures.

Soil

Amend garden soil with compost. Use a good quality indoor potting soil to plant your herbs inside. Never dig up dirt from the garden for indoor plants. Such soil may contain insect eggs and other contaminants. You don't want to hatch insects instead of growing seeds! Bags of garden soil purchased at garden centers are sterilized so you don't have to worry about insects and microbes.

Varieties to Try

Choose culinary herbs that you love to use and purchase frequently at the store. The best herbs to grow are the ones you plan to use frequently.

Basil

Basil remains by far one of the most popular culinary herbs to grow. It needs full sun, plenty of water and lots of light and warmth but rewards the cook with a strong, pungent flavor that adds the right top note to Italian, Thai and other dishes.

Sweet basil or Genovese basil is the variety most often sold in supermarkets and grown in backyard gardens across America to add zest to many dishes. Sweet basil paired with tomatoes and mozzarella and drizzled with olive oil and coarse salt is a treat many crave during the peak summer tomato months and uses sweet basil for flavoring. Pesto is also made from this basil, garlic and other ingredients. If you can grow just one basil, try this one first. Purple basil or Red Rubin basil offers strong, bold flavor and large colorful leaves. For cooks who enjoy using culinary herbs to add a dash of color to a dish, purple and red leafed basils add both flavor and color.

Thai basil provides a popular flavor for Thai and Asian dishes. It can be grown at home fairly easily from seeds.

Chives

Chives are easy to grow and add either onion or garlic flavor to dishes. They can be grown in pots on the windowsill or in the garden. Simply snip, dice and enjoy when ready to use.

Rosemary

Rosemary plants purchased at garden centers can live for many years if kept indoors. Outdoors, they will grow throughout the warm summer months but must be covered or brought indoors during cold weather. Use the needle-like leaves of rosemary to season beef and pork dishes.

Sage

With its fuzzy gray-green leaves, sage provides a lovely garden accent and rich flavor for many dishes. It can be grown from seed or from plants but novices may find it easier to purchase plants at the garden center. One plant produces plenty of leaves for culinary use.

More Information

This list only touches upon a few favorite culinary herbs. For those serious about growing culinary herbs, a complete list may be found on the Culinary Herb Guide.