Only a few so far, but let’s wait and see. On to the crazy cucumber plant, which is now sprouting lots of yellow flowers (which hopefully means heaps of mini cucumbers starting soon):

Both those plants are getting too big for the windowsill, unfortunately. I think I’m going to have to get them into bigger pots and get them used to the great outdoors over the next couple of weeks.

The chervil and the dill have already been outdoors a few times, going back into the greenhouse at night. We’ve been eating them too.

The tomato plants are looking kind of scruffy, but apparently that’s normal.

The experimental pot with spinach, land cress and rocket is now growing quite well – the land cress is probably the happiest:

We have some nearly-there spring onions too:

As for the rest of it, the cut-and-come-again salad leaves haven’t grown back (surprise!), the second crop of pea shoots have grown back (slowly but surely), and the basil and parsley are very happy. We ate all the alfalfa (nicer than I remembered) and radish shoots, but might do some more next week.

Are you growing any herbs or veggies indoors? How are they doing?

So I thought I’d better try sowing a few more salad/veg seeds, preferably things we haven’t seen yet. Here’s a pot with rocket at the top, spinach on the bottom left, and American land cress just starting to sprout on the bottom right:

I also had some free Little Gem and Serrano chili seeds that I stuck into a couple of pots but they’re not sprouting yet, so maybe next week… But for now, on with the show. Ta-daaaaa, more magic beans:

Thinning out the lettuce taught me a few things:

• Lettuces don’t like being moved about
• Lettuces don’t like being left in the sun
• Lettuces don’t like being too warm

Here they are being a bit finnicky:

Started a new batch of pea shoots:

The mustard greens aren’t doing much, apart from losing their first set of leaves:

The spring onions look suspiciously like anaemic chives, so they have until next week to butch up:

I should probably pot on these overcrowded tomato seedlings:

The cayenne chili pepper is looking OK after being repotted:

I have high hopes for at least one of the cucumber plants surviving and growing well under glass:

The herbs – mint, chervil, dill and basil are all growing in the right direction now too:

I’ve swapped a few excess seeds for a load of alfalfa, but that hasn’t arrived yet. As soon as it does I’ll make some kind of seed/bean sprouter for the windowsill garden and see how that works out.

Are you growing any veg or herbs on your windowsill? If not, are you thinking about it? Any success stories so far this month?

A couple of weeks ago I met up with an old friend for a drink or three. She’s been keeping an eye on the windowsill’s progress and said I should try growing some dwarf French beans in a pot in the kitchen, because she’s had success with them in previous years. Got myself some of these beans in a swap and planted two of them a few days ago, thinking only one would germinate.  This is what happened:

Something tells me that these aren’t dwarf beans. The good news is that I didn’t swap them for the family cow and they haven’t reached the clouds yet, so we’re safe for the moment. Probably.

I sowed some spring onions and chervil at the same time, thinking they’d take up to three weeks to germinate. Not so. Guess they heard there was a plant-food-fuelled party going on. Ban this filth! There’s compost everywhere!

That chervil’s even got one of its first true leaves out, the precocious little hussy.

And on to the progress of a few of the old favourites. Dill going nicely frondy:

Marketmore cucumbers growing away nicely:

The remaining radishes are being left to grow on, to see how long they take to make edible roots.

The sun-loving plants all seem to be doing OK, including the chili and the tomatoes. Here’s a snap of the plum tomato seedlings:

And finally the salad bowl lettuce that was just sprouting last week:

Didn’t have time to start off the baby leaf spinach or land cress last week, but will do that this weekend, along with a punnet of rocket, and maybe a few more herbs.

Are you growing any food yourself? If so, how well is it growing?

The pea shoots have had their fish and chips. They’ve turned into mushy peas and aren’t going to give us a third crop. The first two rounds were great though, two gourmet bunches of pea shoots in one month from a tiny handful of peas and the smallest amount of soil-free compost. Will start another batch at the weekend and ditch the old ones:

The parsley is doing really well, so here’s the last pic of that:

Mint’s catching it up, finally, and the dill is putting out its first true leaves. Basil’s written off until April.

The spicy leaf mix is still fairly useless. Will probably sow another batch next month in a different container.

The iceberg lettuces got off to a good start but are  a bit leggy now. Not sure if they need more sun or less. Any ideas?

The mustard greens seem really happy, and the salad bowl lettuces I sowed in the mini propagator four days ago are sprouting already.

So far so good with peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and the mini chili plant:

Finally, the radish tops were so delicious that I’m probably going to grow them all year round as microgreens. The variety I used was Cherry Belle, if you’d like to give it a go too. The flavour was sweet and mild, and you get fairly big fast-growing dark green leaves with red stems.

Have also sowed small pots of chervil and spring onions, but they are supposed to take a long time to germinate, so no pics of empty containers here. If there’s time at the weekend, will start off some land cress and baby leaf spinach too, to see how they get on.

So far the winners here are: pea shoots, common (curled) cress, mustard greens, parsley and radish tops. It might change as we go into Spring and Summer, who knows?

Are you growing any windowsill food? What are you having the most luck with so far?

I bought their ‘fresh salad’ multipack, which contains radish, cress, spring onion, tomato, iceberg lettuce and cucumber, all of which I hear can be grown indoors. The tomato variety is Moneymaker, which I won’t be growing this year as I’ve set my heart on growing other varieties (more about that later).  The lettuce will probably be eaten at the baby leaf stage, or there won’t be enough room for it. Iceberg isn’t exactly gourmet, but it does have a mild flavour and a good crunch, and it mixes well with pea shoots.

Speaking of which, I cut the last lot of shoots for a garnish. They tasted as good as the first crop, but there were fewer of them and they grew smaller leaves. To complete the experiment I’ll try to grow a third set of shoots from the same pot, although I’m not too hopeful they’ll be as good. Here’s what they look like now, rather depleted.

Here are some of the herbs: dill (new), mint and parsley. The basil is still being finnicky and I’m probably going to end up re-seeding the pots at this rate. I have loads of different seeds left over from my outdoor herb garden so will probably try a few different varieties on the windowsill too to see how they turn out.

Next up, the radishes and cucumber were planted 6 days ago and are already going strong. They’re the pots on the left. Will be pulling up radish thinnings soon and adding them to salads – sowed 8 seeds as an experiment and wasn’t expecting them to have quite so much oomph.  Haven’t started the spring onions off yet, but maybe at the weekend…

Mini-lettuces just sprouted, and all I can say is that I hope the other salad leaves start to take note of their work ethic:

The spicy salad leaves are still looking like overgrown cress, the slackers. Might decide to grow a second batch soon, but start them off in a mini-propagator instead and hot-house the little gits.

Speaking of mini propagators, the tomato seeds I planted (cherry and plum) last week are doing really well.

I’ve been bartering on GardenSwapShop and bidding on eBay to get some more interesting salad seeds too, as cheaply as possible. I now have red and green salad bowl, Lazio spinach, red mustard, lollo rossa and rocket to sow, all of which are cut-and-come again varieties so hopefully we’ll get several crops out of each plant. There’s also some land cress, which is supposed to be easier to grow than watercress, but let’s wait and see.

The total spend so far is £3.99, which I’m hoping will keep me in salad ingredients for several months. About the same price as a couple of bags of supermarket baby leaf salad, and with lots of variety so we don’t get bored.

Are you growing food in your kitchen too? How’s it coming along?

Here’s how it’s getting on:

First, here’s the pea shoots about 13 days after I cut the first set off (delicious, by the way). I had to throw out a couple of peas that’d gone bad, but nearly all the remaining peas have sent up a new shoot.  Some sprout from the cut stems, others grow out of the pea itself. They should be ready to cut again before the weekend, and I hope they taste as good as the last lot. Read somewhere that you can get up to three crops out of one set of peas…

Next up, the cress. No need to mess about with cotton wool, just pop a folded-over bit of kitchen paper in a novelty eggcup, sprinkle with water and seeds and away you go. The double egg cup means you can have one lot ready and another lot sprouting at the same time.

And you can’t have cress without a bit of mustard… The seed collection I bought last month had mustard greens seeds in it – I’m sprouting a few here that seem to be enjoying the party. Will thin a few out to eat with the cress in a salad, and maybe keep some of the others to grow to full size outdoors in a pot. They make gorgeous curry.

My parsley has gone mad. It’s what I’d call ‘leggy’, which is fine for a ballet dancer but not a good thing for a plant, and it probably needs some more light and nutrients. The orange bobbles are granules of slow release plant food I found in the shed. At some point very soon I will have to write about how it went from being The Shed Of Doom to The Shed That Keeps On Giving, but not today.

The chilli seeds sprouted, and I kept the biggest, toughest looking one to grow on. It’s just thinking about stretching out its first pair of true leaves. Thinking about it, not quite doing it.

The spicy baby salad leaves are still doing the square root of eff all, so I’ll give them a dose of plant food tomorrow and hope for the best. Meanwhile, the mint and the purple basil are finally making an effort. That effort is so tiny you might miss it, but credit where credit’s due and all that…

That’s it from the windowsill this week. Next week there might be some new varieties growing away on there – I’ve found a couple of packets of bargain seeds on eBay and it’s time to break out the spare propagator. 

What have you been growing?

Then I heard about a second method that was supposed to be faster, so I tried that way too last weekend. You soak the seed peas overnight in a shallow dish of lukewarm water, then drain and rinse them in the morning, before adding them back to the dish and soaking in fresh lukewarm water for the rest of the day. After two soaks, all your peas should have tiny sprouts starting to form on them. (If not, give them one more drain, rinse and 8-hour soak for luck).

Then you take the sprouting peas and pop them in a pot on top of some compost, keeping the peas one layer thick rather than piling them up on top of each other. Water gently, place some damp kitchen paper over the top of the pot, and then cover tightly with kitchen foil to keep the light out. Leave the peas in a warm place, like the top of the fridge or a shelf over a radiator for 3 to 4 days, watering a little each day. After that, remove the foil and paper and put the pot on the windowsill for 3 to 4 days. After about 8 days (probably less in warmer weather) your pea shoots are ready to harvest.

Look at the difference between method 1 (traditional) on the left, and method 2 (pre-soaking and using warmth) on the right.

In this pic the second batch had just been moved to the windowsill, and was a week behind the first batch. There was a 100% germination rate in the second batch, but as you can see less than half the peas in the first batch sprouted. They’re all getting cropped tomorrow for a fancy salad, but from now on I’ll be sticking to method 2 because it’s so much quicker and there’s a lot less waste.

The final pics:

Other windowsill happenings: the parsley’s growing very well, and there are now two tiny chili seedlings to pot up as soon as they’re a little bigger. The mint and the basil are still being a bit feeble, but that’s probably because it’s been so cold and grey for the last two weeks, and the salad leaves are looking like overgrown cress and not doing very much. Things will probably improve as we head further into Spring and the weather warms up.

How’s everyone’s windowsill gardening coming along so far?

EDITED TO ADD: We now have a little online club for windowsill growers to swap tips, ideas and bargains. 100% free to use and non-profit. It’s right here on the Penny Golightly forum – anyone can read the comments, and it’s really easy to sign up if you’d like to join us and make your own posts and ask questions. Please feel free to have a look.

I forgot to say I’d planted some cress, which grew a full crop in 6 days. It strangely vanished, but unconfirmed reports suggest it got into an unlicensed bagel with some smoked cheese at around noon today. Think I’ll forget the compost next time and chuck it into the world’s silliest novelty egg cup with some soggy kitchen paper instead. Here is the last known photograph of batch 1:

Some of the pea sprouts are sprouting, using the method that can take up to 2 weeks:

I’ll be trying a different method next week that involves pre-soaking the peas and using a lot less compost. Fewer resources, less washing up, and allegedly higher percentage of germination. Sounds too good to be true but let’s wait and see.

The spicy purple basil and the green basil are just making themselves known, but they’re a bit shy so far. Hello purple basil, no need to be bashful…

The baby salad seeds have sprouted their first set of leaves, or at least germinated a little, but I won’t be able to tell what type of individual plants they are until they send out their second set. They’ll be more interesting in a few days, but here’s a baseline picture for the time being.

I would like a nice planter instead of this double-punnet contraption, but will wait to see whether the baby leaf experiment works first. At least it’s practical, and the drainage is just right.

As for the bigger pots of herbs, the mint’s still fast asleep under its duvet like a teenager who doesn’t want to go back to school after the end of the Christmas holidays. Come back next week and ask again about that one. The parsley, on the other hand, is doing me proud:

The chili pepper seeds by the radiator haven’t germinated yet, but they’re strange little plants and might take up to 6 weeks so there’s no point fretting about them. Apparently they don’t get out of bed for anything less than 70 degrees F, like finicky supermodels. If they don’t sprout I’ll just nip into a branch of Wahahca and ask if they have any of their little freebie match books of seeds to spare.

Anybody else out there got a windowsill food garden going right now, or planning to make one?

EDITED TO ADD: We now have a little online club for windowsill growers to swap tips, ideas and bargains. 100% free to use and non-profit. It’s right here on the Penny Golightly forum – anyone can read the comments, and it’s really easy to sign up if you’d like to join us and make your own posts and ask questions. Please feel free to have a look and join in.

Most plants do better outdoors but if you have no outside space then you can still grow yourself some tasty crops, with the added benefit of being able to sow and cut most of them all year round. This can be done on a shoestring budget, or you can spend a few pounds more and go for gourmet plants or attractive pots and planters.

The basics

If you’ve never tried it before, here are a few basic pointers. Your windowsill conditions will dictate what thrives and what doesn’t. A cold, north-facing window with little direct sunlight might be better for delicate herbs and salads, and a south-facing window with four or more hours of daily sun might be better for chili or tomato plants. One of the most common problems is things rotting, so pots need plenty of drainage. To avoid waterlogging, a water mister spray can be used to make sure plants don’t dry out, and tiny amounts of water every few days works better than occasional soakings.

Most indoor plants need plant food when they’re in an active growth phase for more than two weeks, in spite of what you may have heard about herbs preferring harsh conditions, and the plant food needs to be one that’s safe to add to anything that’s going to be eaten. While it’s really cheap to use soil from outside, potting compost or sterile growth mediums are less likely to bring pests and diseases into your kitchen so it’s usually well worth paying the extra for it.

What can you grow?

1. Herbs: especially parsley, basil, and coriander. You may also have good luck with chives, mint, lemon balm, chervil, dill and marjoram/oregano, depending on the growing conditions. While I love to eat coriander at dinner time, I don’t like the smell from a whole pot of it while I’m making a cuppa in the morning so it has to live on the outside doorstep instead, but you may feel differently. If you have an outside garden you can bring in pots of rosemary, thyme, sage etc over the winter, but be warned that they may stop growing while inside the house and they’re not usually happy to live on an inside windowsill all year round.

2. Baby salad, microgreens and lettuce: you can either grow whole lettuces or sprout baby leaves and pick them quickly. For the price of two supermarket packets of baby leaves, you should be able to get enough seeds to grow your own salad for several months. Whole lettuces tend to work best if they’re ‘cut and come again’ types, where you can remove a few leaves from one lettuce (or even most of the top of the lettuce) and a few days later new leaves will grow back. They tend to be open lettuces like lollo rossa, and you can also get this effect with more exotic leaves like mizuna.

Baby leaves and microgreens sprout up quickly in 10-21 days and thrive in shallow punnets, and if you stagger the sowing weekly then you can have one punnet growing while another is ready to crop. There are many varieties that lend themselves to this such as: sorrel, dandelion, lambs lettuce, most conventional lettuces, rocket, cresses, chicory, endive, corn salad, radicchio, arugula, purslane, chervil, certain edible varieties of nasturtium and mustards. You can buy ready-made mixtures of these seeds, including mesclun mix and others, or just buy them singly according to taste. Pea shoots also come into this category and are another cut and come again crop, but they need to be planted in pots at least 2cm below the surface of compost.

3. Sprouted foods: sprouted seeds, grains and pulses can be ready to eat in as little as two days. Popular sprouts include alfalfa, chick pea, green lentil and aduki bean, but you can also sprout sunflower seeds and even broccoli seeds. Try mung beans if you want to grow the beansprouts that are used in many Chinese stir-fry dishes. They can be soaked and then sprouted in glass jars with cloth over the top or in a commercial sprouter – a quick search online will show you the best methods. Don’t sprout kidney beans to eat raw as they can give you a form of food poisoning. If you grow the sprouts without waterlogging them, once they’ve sprouted you can keep them in the fridge for a few days.

4. Chili peppers and tomato plants: warmer windowsills can be home to some types of tomato and pepper, but check information about different varieties as some are better suited than others. You need to like the smell of their foliage if you’re going to grow them indoors.

5. Others? Some people say you can grow other plants on a kitchen windowsill, such as beetroot. I can’t vouch for this as I haven’t tried it, but you’d need a fair bit of space to get a decent crop and they’d take many weeks to grow. If it did work, you’d be able to eat a few of the baby beetroot leaves as salad or in stir-fries.

Costs etc

Be on the lookout for cheap seeds, specially in January and February. I’ve had really good luck in the past with ones from Lidl (29p), Poundland (6 for £1) and Aldi. You can also swap half a packet with a friend if you have more than you need of one type. Friends and neighbours with allotments or greenhouses might give away surplus seedlings for free too, if you’re looking to grow whole lettuces, chilis and tomatoes – or you could be offered some on Freegle or Freecycle if you ask politely during Spring. Then all you need are pots with drainage holes, maybe some stones/gravel/broken pottery to aid drainage in larger pots, growing medium/compost and maybe some plant food.

If it’s going to be inside the house, I like a mini-garden to look pretty as well as be practical. If you’re going to grow baby lettuces, it’s easy enough to hide those repurposed plastic pot noodle cartons inside some kind of planter or box. I’ve seen yogurt pots tucked away into pretty teacups, and bigger plants put into old teapots and even old metal fish kettles, but it really depends on your personal taste as some might find that too twee. At the moment we have a long zinc planter from a hardware shop that holds three pots of herbs, and I’ve also managed to use a few empty bean cans (labels removed) to make small industrial-looking mini-planters that go nicely with it.

At Golightly Gardens

I’ve just planted mint, parsley and sweet basil using seeds I had left over from last year, and I’m also having a go at growing pea shoots from surplus seed peas. This time I’ll try to remember to re-seed the pots as I crop the herbs to keep a continuous supply. Some of the window space is taken up by a mini-propagator at the moment, but from late spring that will be replaced by either beansprouts or punnets of rocket. I love spicy food too, so last week I bought the latest Poundland seed bundle called ‘nice and spicy’, from which I’m going to try to grow a cayenne pepper plant, some spicy purple basil, and a lot of baby leaf mix (mizuna, cima di rapa, green pak choi and red mustard). I might even try to grow one or two of the pak choi and mizuna plants to maturity in separate pots if I can hold back from eating the baby leaves.

The Poundland sachet also had mustard greens and coriander in it, but they’ll have to be grown outside by the doorstep and don’t count as part of the indoor garden. The outlay for the kitchen windowsill so far this year is £1, which isn’t too bad at all for what could potentially be quite a lot of fancy food. Pictures will follow when things start to grow, as empty pots aren’t very interesting to look at.

Do you grow any food on your kitchen windowsill? Are you thinking about it?

EDITED TO ADD: We now have a little online club for windowsill growers to swap tips, ideas and bargains. 100% free to use and non-profit. It’s right here on the Penny Golightly forum – anyone can read the comments, and it’s really easy to sign up if you’d like to join us and make your own posts and ask questions. Please feel free to have a look and join in.