By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

As discussed in part I, fresh herbs are a great addition to ones indoor gardening arsenal.

They provide flavoring for food, scents rooms, bathes, and provide overall beauty.

But container choice will depend more on where you plan to place your herb garden.

Traditionally, herb gardens have been found on the windowsill but other choices remain and utilize not only the horizontal space but also the vertical.

Strawberry Urn

A strawberry urn or pot is a great container for herbs. The pockets on the side of this planter make planting an assortment of herbs easy. If you plan to use this type of planter, make sure that it will be placed in a location that receives at least six hours of sunlight.

Before planting the strawberry urn, one must get the supplies together. Each urn will have its own number of planting openings so make sure you have enough plants for each pocket and the top.

Next the planter will need to be cleaned before it is planted. To do this, simply submerge the planter in a bucket of warm, soapy water with one cap full of bleach. Scrub and remove any soil particles, rinse and let dry out in the sun. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

As the fall winds blow, many of my lovely garden plants begin to slow down and die.

The delightful taste of summer begins to slip away and be replaced by hearty meals filled with numerous root crops.

What I miss the most when summer drifts away is the taste of fresh herbs.

In the past, I bought so called fresh herbs from the grocery store.

These never really tasted as good as those I grew in the garden. So a few years ago, I decided to grow my own fresh herbs indoors.

Most herbs will do fine indoors. The key to their growth is providing the correct amount of sunlight and not overwatering.

Annual herbs are very easy to grow and can be started anew by reseeding in a container. Several herbal seeds are very Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

I love to work with those who say they cannot garden.

The reasons for not gardening range from not having land, space, time or talent.

But these really are just excuses and anyone can garden in any space with very little time commitment.

The key to this is to start small, not only in space but variety of plants, and to realize that to learn one must make a few mistakes.

These mistakes should be used not as failures but as a learning opportunity.

Many habits that our society has create perfect opportunities for gardening. Our fast paced lifestyle generates trash that can be used to grow food. Takeout containers, plastic produce containers and containers that sprouts come in are just a few of these trash items that can be converted to containers for micro-gardening.

To start your own micro-garden begins with Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

I love herbs and when I was first married I learned a valuable lesson about herbs.

My husband and I lived on a very limited budget when we were first married.

I would look through cookbooks and drool over fancy dishes using all fresh herbs.

I did try store bought fresh herbs but the price of these luxury items was just too much. So the next step I took was to only grow herbs in containers in the summer. How wonderful it was to have fresh basil, chives, sage, and mint.

But I left my lovely plants outside, which meant I had no fresh herbs for winter use. The simple solution to this problem was one that evaded me for several years and that was to grow them indoors.

Spring, summer, fall and winter are all a perfect time to grow herbs.

Once you start though, you are only limited by Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

Growing up in a rural community brought many challenges that some people do not appreciate.

One of these challenges was sweets.

While my dad had a sweet tooth and loved pastries, pies, cakes, donuts and anything else sweet, we could only have sweets that were marked down.

I really do not think I ever had a sweet that was not marked down until I was married.

In my family, frugalness was next to godliness.

So growing up, sweets were found in the fruits and vegetables that were grown on the farm. Fresh apples, peaches and plums were the staple desert after the evening meal but for me I discovered the sweetness of a long forgotten vegetable the turnip.

Turnips are one of those Read the rest of this entry »