A kitchen garden is just a basic garden that includes some of your most-used cooking herbs and a few vegetables that seem to make it into many of your recipes.
If it’s your first time growing a kitchen garden, keep it simple. Pick three to five of your favorites and enjoy them. I suggest some very simple to grow herbs like chives, basil, rosemary, sweet marjoram, cilantro. These all grow well with very little fuss (yes, even the rosemary. It doesn’t get tricky until you try to overwinter it.) Then, if you are would like a complete kitchen garden, add a tomato and cucumber plant. Tuck in some lettuce and you have a complete meal in a small space.
Tips For The Perfect Kitchen Garden
Here are some tips to make growing a kitchen garden you will actually use.
- Grow only what you enjoy eating. If no one eats onions, chives wouldn’t be a good choice.
- Keep it simple. Don’t go overboard and lose control of your garden space. Grow a few, healthy plants as its much more enjoyable than fighting with overcrowded or a neglected garden later in the season.
- Find the right location. Grow sun-loving herbs in a sunny area, and cool loving plants in another. If you grow your kitchen garden in pots, it makes it easy to move them to just the right spot. Position them to light the area over your herbs for at least 4-6 hours a day, and they will thrive.
A trick to having beautiful herbs on the windowsill is to plant two sets of the same plants. Then, you can rotate a fresh herb to the window when needed, and leave its twin to go back to the bright sunny location.
