One of my wintertime guilty pleasures is watching cooking shows on the idiot box. It's not the best plan for dieters but, if you love to cook, it's a great place to get inspired and to update your menus.
One of my favourites is celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. He's never short of fresh herbs that he simply grabs from his window garden. Who does that? Well, actually anyone can. It only takes a bit of time to plan, a few materials plus a dash of TLC.
What you'll need: containers with drainage holes, planting media, seeds or plants and a suitable location.
I recommend planting each herb variety in separate pots. Otherwise aggressive plants may choke out slower growing varieties. Pots can be all the same for uniformity, or different to create an eclectic look. Unglazed terracotta will dry out faster than glazed or plastic pots. Regardless, use approximately the same size (3 - 4 inch diameter) container for ease of maintenance and aesthetics.
Choose a soil-less or peat-based sterile media to avoid introducing insects or soil-borne diseases. Moisten the media before filling your pots to within a half-inch of the rim. If you're starting from seed, scatter a few seeds on the surface and cover with a thin layer of media. Cover with plastic wrap to keep the soil surface moist, but remove the cover as soon as seedlings begin poking through. After that, water as required to keep the media moist but not wet. Feed your plants alternate weeks with a half-strength complete fertilizer solution (e.g. 20-20-20 + micronutrients).
Many herbs prefer Mediterranean-like conditions - bright light, shirtsleeve temperatures which are never cold, frosty or toasty and good humidity. A south exposure is ideal but as long as your garden gets 3 - 4 hours of sun a day, a west or east exposure will be fine.
Glass is a poor insulator so, on the coldest days, plants next to the glass can be damaged from low to freezing temperatures. Therefore, keep leaves at least a couple of inches away from the glass. And never trap plants between the window and the curtains.
To keep your sill clean and to make watering easier, put all your pots in a large tray rather than individual saucers. You can add water to the tray, allowing pots to draw up water through their drainage holes. But you'll need to be able to drain excess water so plants don't sit in water for longer than an hour. To increase humidity around the plants, add a layer of gravel and keep the water level just below the top of the gravel.
Seeds at this time of year may be difficult to find in stores. But it's worthwhile stopping at your favourite garden centre or farm supply. Mail order and internet shopping are your other options. You can't beat Richter's Herbs (www.richters.com) for variety. But there are many other Canadian seed suppliers (Stokes: www.stokes.com; Johnny's Selected Seeds: www.johnnyseeds.com; Veseys: www.veseys.com; and William Dam Seeds: www.damseeds.com to name a few).
Fungus gnats are one of the main pests of indoor gardening. They spend most of their life cycle in the soil as tiny white worm-like maggots, emerging as tiny flies to mate and lay eggs on the soil surface. As long as their main food source, decaying plant matter, is available, they cause little damage. But, as maggot numbers increase, they start munching on live roots, reducing plant vigour and growth.
The little flies themselves are mostly just annoying. Remember you'll eventually end up using these plants in your cooking so avoid using pesticides. However, a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution - one part peroxide to four parts water - is a relatively benign but effective control option.
This column is provided courtesy of the Saskatchewan Perennial Society. (www.saskperennial.ca; [email protected]).
Upcoming events:
Oct. 23 - Made in Saskatchewan - Sour cherries, Haskaps and other introductions from the University of Saskatchewan. Presented by Bob Bors (www.fruit.usask.ca), U of S fruit specialist. 7:30 - 9:30 p.m., St. James Anglican Church, 607 Dufferin Ave., Saskatoon.
