There are many reasons why a house might get an unpleasant odour.  Many people with cats and dogs find that a certain corner of their house has given itself over to smelling like a litter box, or you may have just moved into an apartment or an older house and it currently sports a musty smell.  Even the well-kept house can get a slight odour after being closed up all winter.  Thankfully, we can add fragrance to every room in our home by growing herbs indoors.

Herbs are my favourites over flowers when it comes to adding a pleasant scent to my home.  First of all, flowers only produce a scent when they are blooming.  Even indoor flowering plants will not bloom all year round.  In addition, the scent of flowers can sometimes overpower the atmosphere of a room and give it an overpowering feeling.  This is especially true during the winter when you have to keep your house shut up and the combination of central heating and flowers can be overwhelming.  Growing herbs indoors releases a fragrance whether or not the herbs are blooming and their scent is generally more subtle than that of flowers, their perfume is often fresh and light. In fact, some herbs do not even release scent unless you brush up against them.  Therefore, if you are looking for a light, clean scent to fill your rooms, growing herbs indoors is the answer.

As you look around for herbs to add a pleasant aroma to your home, you will find there are many from which to choose.  In the kitchen it is good to consider practicalities as well as scents.  If the area where we prepare food is occasionally visited by fruit flies or other small insects, then growing herbs indoors like garlic and chives will keep insects out.  These two herbs also continually fill the kitchen with the smells of good cooking, so they are great for the windowsill above your sink.  Basil is another great herb to keep in the kitchen: it is primarily used for cooking, but after it is snipped it releases a light and fresh fragrance.

You can help the health of your pets by growing herbs indoors – in fact, pennyroyal is a good herb to keep around.  You might find the odour a little pungent, so it is better if confined to the litter box or sleeping area of your pet – but remember to keep it up on a high shelf as the leaves are toxic to eat.  The scent and oil of the pennyroyal will keep away fleas, therefore as you harvest its leaves, rub the oil on your pet collar and bedding.

Lavender may be the most popular way to add fragrance to your home with herbs.  Lavender produces a sweet-smelling purple flower.  These flowers can be used in cake decoration or can be dried and placed in sachets.  Dried lavender keeps your clothes smelling great and will also repel moths just as effectively as camphor balls.  Since lavender is a hearty plant, you should be able to keep it in any room that gets adequate sunlight.

If you are looking at growing herbs indoors you might want to try rosemary in the bathroom since rosemary is a semi-tropical Mediterranean herb that loves hot and humid conditions.  Of course, it needs some natural light or a grow light in order for it to flourish and it will gift you with a wonderful light scent that is reminiscent of evergreen needles.

Mint is an amazing way to bring a variety of sweet aromas into your house.  These days, mint has been bred to produce a wide array of scents.  You can find traditional spearmint and peppermint, but there is also lemon, lime, orange, banana, ginger, and chocolate mint. All these mints produce the same scent as their namesake.  If you are feeling creative, you could even create a “fruit bowl” of citrus mints to act as an original centrepiece to your dining room table.

As you start to add fragrance to every room in your home by growing herbs indoors you will quickly see what an enjoyable and rewarding process this can be.

Growing herbs indoors is simple and the benefits it brings come in countless ways. Herbs are not only easy to grow, but you can user your herbs in many ways.  They can be used for such diverse things from decorating to cooking to making tea.  Growing herbs indoors is very convenient. Your herbs will be accessible year around for you to use.  Weather is not an issue when you grow herbs indoors.

Growing herbs indoors will bring nature inside plus give you the benefits of being able to harvest your very own fresh herbs. One of the many advantages of growing herbs indoors is that they purify the air. Also, they fill the air with wonderful fragrances, and offer their harvest for cooking, healing ailments, and beauty in craft projects and bouquets.

Know your plant. Learn about each and every plant that you will take care of not only to be able to give the care that it deserves but also for you to benefit greatly by being able maximize the harvest and use of the plant you choose.

Indoor lighting takes the place of natural outdoor sunlight. If you place a plant inside your home, it may not have enough sunlight. This problem is easy solved by using a fluorescent light to be the light your plants need. Be careful to keep the light away from the plant. The leaves may burn from the heat. Learn each plant’s sunlight requirements but most are happy with at least 6-8 hours.

You need to know when to water. Evaporation is not as fast indoors as outdoors.  You must be careful to avoid overwatering your plant and making the roots suffer from rot, you can find out if the plant needs to be watered. Observe the top of the soil; if it looks dry, it is time to water. If still in doubt, touch the soil lightly, if it feels very moist, delay watering.

Growing herbs indoors is a great way for beginners to break into gardening. Not only are herbs very easy to grow, but you can use your herbs in a variety of ways ranging from decoration to cooking to making teas. One of the biggest advantages of starting your gardening experience with herbs is that you can conveniently grow them indoors (unlike, say, growing stalks of corn). Growing herbs indoors actually has a few advantages to growing in a garden. You have a convenience in location and space, your herbs will be easily accessible, and you won’t have to deal with difficult weather.

There is nothing more rewarding as growing herb indoors. Growing your own herbs inside your home is more beneficial than growing herbs outdoors, because you are in complete control of everything. You can control how much light and water your herb plants get. You are also in control of the insect situation, and disease control.

For those of you that are limited in your knowledge of indoor herb growing how to. There are some great guidelines that you should follow.  Here are a few to get you started.

In order to have a good growing herb garden you must start from the very basics. Herbs grow best when they are started from young plants, although, seed will work; they just have to be replanted once they have grown a little. Be sure to get enough of every kind of herb that you want to plant. If you like garlic in your food you may want to pick up some extra plants; the same thing with any herb that you think that you will use a lot of. You will also want to pick up a soil moisture tester to place inside each pot.

Some of the easiest herbs to grow are basil, sweet basil, parsley, garlic, mint, thyme, chives, tarragon, summer savory, rosemary, dill, and coriander. You may want to try some cilantro also. These herbs do not need as much attention or pampering as some of the other herbs.

The most important thing is how to mix the soil. Although there are quite a few herbs which are easy to grow, however, they do not tolerate bad drainage. Remember that you want to purchase some good 10-10-10 fertilizer, some small gravel, sand, along with some good top soil. Next, mix 1 part of sand, 1 part of fertilizer with 2 parts of top soil. Next, before you put any soil in the pot you want to put about one inch of gravel in the bottom of the pot, then put enough of the prepared top soil about three quarters of the way up the pot. Take one of the small plants and put it in the center of the pot and gently put more soil around it. Tap the soil down gently around the plant and water the plant moderately for the first time.

Once all your herbs are potted, the next thing that you will want to do is to place the soil moisture tester in the pot and wait about 10 minutes to get an accurate reading. If the tester says that the soil is dry just water it a little more. It will let you know when to water your plants.

Next is the placement of your herb plants. Mint should be put in its own container as it likes to take over an area, and if you plant it next to another herb it will begin to take over those plants and could even choke them to death. If you have the kind of mint that crawls then a good idea would be to put it into a hanging basket, in a semi sunny area. Your garlic, chives, and bay should be kept in the kitchen window so that it will always be close by and fresh for your food spices; plus it will help keep your kitchen smelling like someone is cooking and that is the mood you want to set for a kitchen area.

Can you grow herbs indoors? Certainly you can! They won’t be much good, but sure, you can grow them. Let us dispel an enormous myth, generated by too many idiotic filler articles on the internet, as to growing herbs indoors.

Yes, they will grow indoors, but the expectation of most people is that they will grow enough herbs to harvest them every second night for making dinner – it’s not going to happen. They are not going to look like the bunches in the supermarket, and they will not be as potent. For starters, herbs need at least, got that – at least, six hours of sunlight, per day – for at least 10 days, in order to be able to reproduce that which you took last night for dinner. If you harvest too much, the plant may very well cark it, as it needs its leaves for photosynthesis in order to survive.

Now, I don’t know about you, but my experience is that most house-holds do not have enough window space, that allows that much sun in. Then again, should you have so many windows and if, you want to spend your days running around the house with an armful of potted herbs, moving them from window to window as the sun moves – all the best to you. People living in flats and apartments, depending on their geographic location, may be lucky to get 2 hours of sun – and most will get none. Given the opportunity, you could take them outside each day, whilst the sun is shining, but I have little confidence that this practice will continue after the second week, if that, for most people.

Add to this, the fact that herbs are essentially an outside plant, when growing inside, regardless of how much sunlight they get, this is still not optimal conditions – therefore, the plants will be leggier than normal (more stalk than leaf), so twice as much of the plant is needed in cooking. The taste/aroma of house-herbs is weaker and so, twice as much is needed to get the same effect. When you look at plants like sage, rosemary, oregano and similar – the natural environment for these plants is on the side of mountains, just above the tree-line. It is the harshness and exposure that makes these herbs potent.

Unless you have a purpose built sun-room, actually live in a glass house, or have a couple of dozen of each plant that you can set up on a rotational system, it will end up being a once-a-month treat, to actually use some of your precious indoor herbs. The first argument about this, is of course “But you can grow lots of plants indoors” Very true, however indoor plants do not ordinarily have their leaves ripped off them, they are only there for looking at, not harvesting.

Having said all that, there are of course herb kits that come with everything necessary – including GROW LIGHTS! Brilliant idea and works reasonably well, too. However, if you are thinking of going to go the expense of a grow kit, I think you will find it is far more economical to buy yourself a case of decent wine and a packet of herbs from the shop. On a practical note, it is far more practical to grow more herbs than you need in the garden in spring and summer, then cut and dry the excess. You still get bragging rights with this method, as opposed to the sad display that will be sitting on your window sill. For those people living in flats and apartments, herbs, especially dried herbs, are cheap as all get out – AND they last for a long time before becoming impotent, like years, so do yourself a favor, buy ‘em.

Thus ends my rant on the reality of growing herbs indoors.

There are great Advantages of Growing Herbs Indoors, such as the convenience of having fresh herbs right in the kitchen. Wouldn’t it be nice to need a particular herb, and just reach in the window, which is only a few steps away, and cut it off?

You can do this if you grow your herbs in your home. You would want to keep the herbs that you use the most, as close to the cooking area as you can. Another benefit of indoor herb growing is that herbs taste much better when they are cut fresh. That is why you see all the famous chiefs on T.V. cut them straight from the garden.

There are some herbs that have a great aroma, such as mint, which will keep your kitchen smelling good. However, there are some herbs, such as sage, which does not smell as good; these herbs should be planted outside near the kitchen door. Other types of herbs will grow beautiful flowers, which will make your kitchen look livelier. Still there are other herbs that have healing benefits as well as being used as a culinary herb, such as garlic, which helps lower blood pressure. Ginger is good for stopping nausea and for helping relieve arthritis. Parsley, which is used for a garnish more than anything else, is great for people who are trying to diet; and it is great for kidney problems.

There is also the advantage of you controlling the herbs growing conditions. You control how much and what type of light you want the plants to have, even if it is a mixture of sunlight and/or fluorescent lighting. You control the watering conditions as well as better control of diseases, and harmful bugs.

This all sounds so good that you may want to just jump in and start planting an herb garden right away; but you feel that you do not know enough about growing herbs to try it. If you really have the enthusiasm to try your hand at growing herbs indoors, it is a good idea to purchase an inexpensive book about herbs, preferably one with pictures of the herbs in it. This booklet will be your best friend for growing your own herbs. It will give you a brief history where certain herbs originated and how difficult it will be to grow. The book will also have some great suggestions about how to prepare your soil, and watering conditions. It will also have suggestions for placing your herb pots or containers in certain rooms of your home. However, not all books will mention that you can freeze and dry your own herbs when it comes near the end of the growing season.

On nice sunny days, you can move some of your herbs outside for a few hours at a time, as long as you do not put them out during the heat of the day. Remember that they are houseplants and they will not be used to the harsh heat and environment, but they do like to go out for fresh air in the morning or afternoon sun.

There are even more advantages than this small article can cover, it would take a large book to actually cover everything. Remember that herbs are not as hard to grow as many people think they are. Once you get the basics down the rest are easy. Growing Herbs Indoors is a wonderful hobby that I’m sure you will enjoy.