Everything You Need to Grow an Indoor Herb Garden

“The best herbs to grow indoors are the ones you find yourself reaching for most often with everyday cooking,” says Emily Murphy, author of Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families To Change Your Life. With seeds for five of the most common kitchen herbs, including cilantro and parsley which Murphy calls “the best herbs for low-light conditions,” this set is a good place to get started. It also includes basil which is great for new gardeners just getting a feel for how often to water their herbs. Dooling explains, “you’ll know from a mile away if your basil plant needs water because it’ll start to wilt and flag. If you water it quickly enough it should bounce back and be fine.”

An annual plant (one that lives for one season and produces seeds for the next), basil is a popular herb garden choice and one that’s easily grown straight from seeds. Outdoors, basil plants can grow quite large, but if you continually prune leaves from your potted plant as needed, you’ll control its size and grow it as a “microgreen.” Gayla Trail, author of Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces, explains, “microgreens [are] very young plants that are harvested as seedlings or just after. They make a flavourful and fresh addition to salads, sandwiches, and as soup or meal garnishes.” Along with High Mowing Seeds, Botanical Interests is one of Murphy’s favorite sources for seeds.

Also a perennial that’s best grown from a starter plant, cuban oregano is Trail’s favorite herb for indoor gardens, and one that’s especially easy for new gardeners. “This plant has succulent-like leaves and is practically unkillable,” she says. “Cuban oregano will survive anywhere.”

Another one of Murphy’s favorite potting mixes, this soil from the Humboldt County-based FoxFarm also features coconut coir to keep plant roots moist. “Another neat thing about coconut coir,” she says, “is that it’s pH neutral. Most herbs prefer pH neutral soil. That’s the range in which they uptake the nutrients the best.”

Not technically a soil, Growstone is a hydroponic (soilless) grow medium made from recycled glass. Sarah Burrows, co-founder of Modern Sprout, likes it for growing herbs indoors because while “soil has a tendency to compact over time and cut off oxygen to roots, [Growstone] creates really nice pockets for the roots to continue to breathe and … [holds] water right next to the roots instead of taking away from it which is what soil does because it’s super absorbent.” The lightweight and porous blend also contains coconut coir, creating an ideal environment for seeds to grow.

This little tray and three planters with drainage holes would be perfect for a windowsill herb garden.

For Mediterranean herbs like rosemary, sage, and thyme, though, you do want a terracotta or clay pot that will drain and dry out quickly. “Plants from the Mediterranean like to be watered well and then allowed to dry out thoroughly between waterings,” says Murphy. “So, it’s important to put these plants into containers that breathe and wick moisture.”

These clay pots and saucers have a delightful, unfinished look.

Another option for herbs that like to dry out, Dooling suggests Hypertufa, a mixture of concrete and peat moss. While experts generally don’t love using peat, he says it works in these planters because it “lightens up the concrete and it’s also permeable and porous and allows for water and gas exchange through the pot.”

One of the main stumbling blocks indoor herb gardeners face, especially if they live in an apartment without good natural light, is making sure herbs get the six to eight hours of bright sunlight they need to thrive. An LED grow light can be an easy solution. Dooling says, “there are really good LED lights being made these days that are better at reaching the full spectrum of light that plants need.” Tonkinson says to look for ones that are “fairly inexpensive and clamp onto the side of the pot.”

To keep several herbs under a light at once, this tabletop grow light will cover several pots. Along with keeping herbs alive, Dooling says that light is especially crucial for aromatic herbs like rosemary with a high oil concentration. “The stronger the light level, the more pungent, stronger, and more flavorful those oils are going to be.”

We’ve covered all-in-one herb gardening kits in the past that include grow lights along with watering systems and seed pods, but our experts prefer ones that give you more flexibility in choosing your own herbs, soil, and pots. “Consider kits that are multi-functional and grow with gardeners as their gardens grow,” says Murphy. “This [kit] allows the grower to use a potting mix from the garden center and grow from seeds or starts.”

It takes up a little more space than the Torchstar, but if you have the room, Murphy also likes this “versatile and attractive” bamboo LED light system. “A wide range of herbs in your containers of choice can be grown within the system.”

Made from brass and glass, this LED light kit would be an attractive addition to a kitchen or living room. Burrows explains that it was Modern Sprout’s goal to design a light that’s also an appealing piece of home decor. “A lot of grow lights out there are a bit more utilitarian and they’re going to emit blue and reds which are all part of the color spectrum,” she says, “but with our grow lights you can get that full spectrum of light but it’s calibrated to emit a natural white light.” Just keep in mind that these light kits don’t include watering systems so you’ll have to make sure your herbs are getting enough — but not too much — water. “As a general rule of thumb, water when the top layer of soil is dry,” says Tonkinson. “I always poke my finger in about an inch to check.”

Editor’s Note: This growhouse is out of stock, but Modern Sprout has many other LED light grow fixtures—like frames—for sale on their website.

If you don’t want to be bothered with watering, this hydroponic grow kit uses a passive watering system to make sure plants get enough moisture. “You’re not trying to guess if it’s needing more water or needing less water [and] you don’t have to worry if you’re traveling,” says Burrows.
Simply fill the glass planter with water and, as she describes, “a wick pulls water up into the growing medium [as needed], so you can just look at it on your windowsill and see [that] as the plant gets bigger it’ll drink more quickly.” The glass planters make it easy to monitor the water level and know when it’s time to add more. Place them near a sunny window or under a grow light and you’re all set.

You’ve planted your herbs, given them the right amount of light and water, and now it’s finally time to pick some leaves and sprigs to actually use in your food. While this is the moment you’ve been looking forward to all along, actually picking your herbs can be a bit stressful. As Burrows says, “people grow herbs and then are like, ‘I don’t want to touch it, it’s too beautiful,’ but the key to growing herbs is actually to harvest them. The more you harvest, the more that plant’s going to trigger new growth.” She likes that Modern Sprout’s pruning shears are “really fine-tipped [and] needle-nose, which really enables you to get into tight, small spots.”

“As soon as you can safely start removing leaf matter from the plant then it’s a good time to start taking,” says Dooling, who seconds Burrows’s point that “when you cut them, you’re stimulating more growth on the plant. So when you cut that rosemary, it’ll put up two more sprigs.” While any pair of scissors will do, he says, “Felco makes really great pruners.”