WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Growing indoor herbs

If you are going to be doing some holiday cooking this time of year, you have to have fresh herbs! But around here, it's hard to find some fresh herbs out in the garden in December. So you can bring your outdoor herbs inside or you can start them indoors. Either way you can have them in your kitchen for the holiday season.

To grow Mediterranean herbs, such as rosemary, thyme, and oregano, indoors start with plants from a garden center. Make sure your pots have really well drained soil, because one of the things that happens is they'll rot if the soil is too wet. They also need lots of light this time of year. Actually if you don't give them enough light, they'll get really tall and leggy, then you'll have to snip them back to keep them nice and small. Of course you can cook and use the snippings in meals. They grow best in a south facing window or under grow lights. You don't need to fertilize them much at all. You can wait until about February before you have to add any fertilizer.

The way to harvest herbs is not just to take a little sprig off the top but take the whole shoot back down to the base. That way it's going to stimulate new growth and you'll have a nice bushier plant then if you just took little tops off here and there.

Sometimes you might get some bugs on your indoor herbs. You're not the only one who likes them. Mealy bugs, aphids, white flies, and others love young herbs. A simple way to control them is to have a little basin with some soapy water in it. Take your herb plant in a small pot and turn it over and just give him a little bit of a bath! Wash those bugs right off! Make sure you coat the leaves really well and that will kill any eggs and bugs that are on your indoor herbs and won't effect the flavor.

By Charlie Nardozzi