Herself’s Houseplants

Houseplant care, photos and science

7 Tips to grow herbs from seed indoors

ljmacphee | January 21, 2008

One of the most challenging groups of plants to grow indoors is herbs.
1) Start seeds directly in a pot with soil. Your best successes growing herbs indoors will come with the ones you start from scratch. Not to mention there are a ton more varieties of seeds available than plants.
2) Go easy harvesting [...]

The secret of the scent of basil

ljmacphee | November 2, 2007

Their study, published in the Oct. 4 issue of the journal PLoS ONE, provides a three-dimensional snapshot of the enzyme basil Eugenol Synthase frozen in mid-action as it produces eugenol, the fragrant molecule responsible for basil’s spicy overtones reminiscent of cloves and cinnamon.“This particular enzyme is very interesting since it belongs to a large [...]

Growing herbs indoors

ljmacphee | September 10, 2007

Growing herbs indoors is a challenge. Herbs need lots and lots of light. Even the sunniest house window is often too dark for them.
But if you can get light to your herbs they will thrive as well inside as out.
I was window shopping a month or so ago and wandered into a cooking [...]