If you are looking for the perfect kitchen herb garden, you want something that is quick and easy to make, and simple to care for. In order to keep your kitchen herb garden simple, start out the right way by planning what you grow. 

Picking The Location

Choose a spot that works best for your herbs, but also best for you. If you have the perfect herb garden growing at the other end of the house from the kitchen, you will never use the herbs.


Try looking for a place that is as close to the cooking area as possible, so your herbs are at your fingertips. Most commonly, windowsills are shown covered with a cute little garden of herbs, but in real life, this isn't usually the case. Most windows do not get the required 4-6 hours of direct sunlight, and the herbs will not thrive. 

If you insist, you could grow two windowsill gardens and switch them out weekly, so one is getting the correct sunlight, while the other one is on display. 

Choosing the Herbs

Once you choose your location, pick herbs that will grow well together. Some herbs require dry roots, while other thrive in wet conditions. Plant like with like, and your herbs will thrive. Herbs have different ways of growing; some have a trailing habit, and grow in a vine like way, while others are upright. Some herbs are bushy and others are thin and sleek. It helps to research your herbs just a bit, and find what will grow and fit the best in the pots you will be using. 

Pick the Perfect Pot

Growing a kitchen garden means you have to have the right container.

Find one that is well draining, but won't leak easily. You will be using a dish under your pot to catch the overflow, and these can be something you design that is filled with pebbles (my favorite), or buy a pot with the dish attached if you wish. 
Find a pot that is made from material that is safe; unique pottery and/or metal tins may leach unsafe materials into your soil where it can be absorbed by the herb's roots. A way around this, is to slip a safe pot inside your unique pot to solve the problem. 

Pots have to be sturdy, but this can mean heavy. Find pots that fit your garden design, and be sure you can work around them for cleaning and harvesting purposes. It's great to see some of the more modern designs for indoor herb gardens, but who wants to climb a ladder in order to snip some basil? 

Harvest What You Grow

What good is all the work to find, plant, care for your indoor kitchen herb garden, if you don't harvest and use the herbs? In order to ensure you have the best harvest possible, be sure you make your herb garden accessible. Climbing or stretching every time you have to care for your plants makes it easy to put off the task. 

Keep herbs trimmed back tightly when growing indoors. Often kitchen gardens become unruly because the gardener is hesitant to trim back a particularly healthy growing herb. Just remember that for every step you trim, two more will grow in it's place and your herbs will thrive. 

Also, growing a garden in the kitchen means you will be trimming back your herbs perhaps more than you can even use them. This is a wonderful problem to have, and usually a paper towel placed in a cool, dark place is all you need to dry the handful of excess herbs you get each day. It's a great way to build up a stash of seasonings for gift giving, and just to have on hand when you need them. Don't forget that cup of tea in the winter! 

Growing an indoor kitchen herb garden makes sense. You can reach your favorite herbs in their freshest stage, and you just may be inspired to use them in your cooking even more. That's a win win for the whole family!