Growing Herbs over Winter

[mikestuff49]

Have any of you tried the AeroGarden Harvest for herbs? I have an indoor grow setup I use for starting seeds and I'm confident that I could use it to grow things like basil, but this option looks pretty good as far as having the herbs available in a handy location. The cost is about $100 and I'm not sure it would be worth the cost over time.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Nan6b]

You could try growing without it...

[PlainJane]

Not tried it, but I’ve seen some restaurants use it for salad and garnish greens.

[bower]

I grow cilantro, parsely and dill in pots (no aerogarden) over the winter, under lights. Basil I found difficult, but that seems to be because the grow areas are not heated and it's just not warm enough for them in winter. C,P and D all like a deep pot for their taproots so I plant them densely in a sandpail and they do fine - except for this year, I got aphids. Hmmmph.

[SpookyShoe]

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Flat leaf and curly parsley, lavender "Provence" in a pot with viola, rosemary in a pot, and some lemon balm. Over the summer I had the lemon balm in pots and they were not driving, so I just threw them in the hummingbird / butterfly corner garden.

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It's a cool, gloomy-skied day.

[greenthumbomaha]

Everything looks perfect like a seed catalog photo. Hopefully my garden will look like that by maybe … August?
Envious and craving fresh greens now. Cut and enjoy, or harvest and dry for storage. They say the first flush is best for preserving.
- Lisa

[SusieQ]

I haven't tried the AeroGarden, but if it's fresh herbs/greens you crave over winter, microgreens might be an option for you. You set up just like you would for growing any seeds (lights, growing medium, etc.), and in about a week or so, you're eating fresh!
I use True Leaf Market for my seeds, but I'm sure there are other vendors out there as well. Just a thought.

[brownrexx]

I always grow a pot of Italian parsley indoors over the winter but have not had any luck with other herbs. This year I bought a French Thyme seedling and put it into a nice pot in the Fall. I got one cutting and it has been slowly dying since. It is almost totally brown now and ready for the compost pile. Darn.

[bower]

The one I could never grow indoors was Hyssop. They just perished every time. I've had French Thyme over winter in a window and it grew a lot of long tender non-woody shoots. Next thing to a microgreen! It was necessary to cut them back anyway. Overall the root volume increased overwinter and so the plant did well when planted out again in spring. Too bad that one didn't take.

[SpookyShoe]

I went into the backyard to see what other herbs might be hanging on from summer and I found some ratty looking plants that are at least better than nothing. If you needed to use them for a recipe you could.

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It's been raining for two days so things are very wet.

[pepperhead212]

I have tried many herbs indoors, but years ago, I started on DW hydroponics, so that I could have basil and Thai basil 365 days a year. Turns out, most plants grow so fast, and grow back so fast after cutting, that only one plant is needed. Of course, I always plant more!

My favorite basil for years, growing inside and out, is Serrata, or saw toothed basil. It is short, and very bushy. Enough basil grows in a Jr EB on my deck, as a windowsill box, to keep me for the summer - 2 serrata, 2 Siam Queen, and 2 usually new ones. Here is a photo of the basils in hydroponics this fall, showing the one in the middle - gecofure, a compact Genovese type - getting leggy, reaching for the light, but the serrata (L) and Siam queen (R) stay compact and bushy. They are also the slowest to bolt - new ones I try tout being slow to bolt, but none have been better. The tub on the left is all greens - lettuce, mizuna, bok choy, and spinach.
Here's the rear view of the hydroponics tubs. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here is a closeup of the serrata:
Serrata basil 11-13 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Some herbs I have tried I stopped, because they attracted spider mites, which would disappear, as soon as the bad plants were removed. Rao ram, ngò om, and sage were the worst, and spearmint attracted aphids - it grew faster than anything else, the 3 times I tried it, but eventually the stalks, not the leaves, would be covered with aphids! Again, as soon as it was removed, they disappeared - nothing went to the other plants in the same tub. Peppermint, however, stays clean, every time.

Parsley is sort of a problem - the flat leaf, which I would always use outside, would grow too large, and the roots would pop the basket open, and break it. The curly, but not triple curly, works best for me. Dill grows well - the duquat (sp.?) is the best for the foliage, and it takes a few months for it to go to seed. Chives grow well, too; I plant that in a large basket, in some coir.

[Shule]

[mention]pepperhead212[/mention]
That's great to know about the aphids not bothering your peppermint. I took spearmint cuttings from the garden once. It seemed like the plants just grew aphids (like they were part of the spearmint genome or something). No matter what I did to it, or how many times I removed them, the aphids would reappear (and not from the soil). Little light green aphids. I never had aphids that persistent outdoors.

We get spider mites on vegetables indoors (they don't bother the houseplants, though). That's one of the reasons I start vegetables in an unheated greenhouse outdoors. They don't bother them there. Plus, it saves space in the house, and it's free light.

I am, however, quite interested in finding plants that resist them indoors. Seed-grown alpine strawberries are the closest I've come, I think. Don't bring strawberry runners inside, though! I did that, and I think it brought a disease in with them.