Herself’s Houseplants

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 herbs grown indoors. They are not going to be as large nor as fast growing as your outdoor ones.

3) Herbs grown for their leaves are the best choice for indoor herbs. Herbs grown for flowers or roots are not usually successful inside.

4) When sowing herbs indoors, put the soil in a pot, soak it, drain it, then plant the seeds to about twice their size down.

5) Put the pots in a warm location ~80′F and cover with wet newspaper. This provides dark and damp for the germinating seeds. This works especially well for seeds too tiny to sow into the soil. Don’t let the paper touch the seeds, just put it over the top of the pot. Take the paper off for a couple of hours each day and check to be sure the soil remains damp while waiting for germination. Use a spray bottle to dampen the soil if needed.

6) Once seeds sprout, remove newspaper, move to a cooler location and give them bright but not direct light. Do not keep them too wet. If the soil is too wet at this stage fungi will destroy your seedlings.

7) Once the plants have two or more leaves you can thin them out and move them to a brighter location. Place herbs in your sunniest window and supplement them with a fluorescent light. Get the brightest bulb you can and place it as close to the herbs as you can. Herbs want about 16 hours of light per day.

When I lived in the northeast I’d garden about six months of the year and had a sunroom full of houseplants to tide me through the winter. Now down here in Houston I garden about 10 months of the year. So you would think it wouldn’t be so bad.

But it is. Come January I just can’t stand it anymore. I need more houseplants. It doesn’t matter that the library, master bath, kitchen and one office are full of plants fighting for space at the windows. Not even a little. I need more plants.

But in January the stores have the sorriest looking collection of houseplants. More of the same plants you already own and they are a rather sad looking group anyhow.

No one wants to ship plants in January. I’ve had to beg, bribe, and pay lots extra for over night shipping just to get the plant stores to consider shipping me a new houseplant in January. “But I must have new houseplants now.”, I beg them.  I won’t last until spring.

But alas no luck.  My favorite nursery will be the one that has a decent houseplant collection for sale in January.  But such a nursery does not yet exist.

Epsom salts have long been used by outdoor gardeners but why not your indoor plants as well?

Epsom salts can be purchased at your local pharmacy and they are very cheap. Epsom salts will help your plants become bushier, produce more flowers, eat better, take up fertilizer easier and they deter pests.

Epsom salts do not build up in your soil like salts from regular fertilizers.

For your houseplants add 2 tablespoons of Epsom salt to a gallon of water. You can use this on your house plants as frequently as once a month.

Epsom salts contain magnesium and sulfates. Magnesium is necessary for seed germination and needed for the production of chlorophyll. Plants use chlorophyll to turn sunlight into food.