Chase away the winter blues
With an indoor window garden

By Marion Owen, Fearless Weeder for PlanTea, Inc. and
Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul

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Where there's a sill, there's a way

The cool weather of autumn tells us it's time to put away the garden tools and prepare for the end of the season. Put away your shovel, yes, but don't be in a hurry to shelf your seed packets. Many seeds can be put to good use during the winter. Have you ever grown an indoor window garden? Fresh flowers, herbs and salad greens might be just the lift you need to breeze through the winter months.

Flower power window gardens

Flowers bring a cheerful disposition to any environment. Bring them indoors and the effect is magnified, especially on a gray, drizzly day. Which flowers are easy to grow indoors? Let's begin with one of my favorites: nasturtiums. Easy to grow and tolerant of marginal soils, nasturtiums rival pansies for face-like flowers that bring a smile. When selecting nasturtiums, sow varieties with a compact, not trailing, growing habit such as Copper Sunset, Empress of India, Whirlybird, and Alaska. Many of these varieties are available through Renee's Garden.

Left to right: Copper Sunset, Vanilla Berry, and Whirlybird nasturtiums

Other indoor flowering gems include calendulas, impatiens, sunflowers, marigolds, Shirley and Iceland poppies and sweet peas. Again, select short, bushy varieties, unless you plan on building a trellis or training plants up the living room curtains! Mix and match color and height. And remember, edible isn't limited to herbs and vegetables. Many flowers, such as calendulas, nasturtiums and pansies are edible. For more information, I highly recommend Cathy Wilkinson Barash's award-winning book "Edible Flowers." You can buy new and used copies through Amazon.com.

A window herb garden for every cook

• basil
• bay
• dill
• thyme
• parsley
• chives
• lemon balm
• garlic chives
• marjoram
• mint
• oregano
• parsley
• rosemary
• sage
• savory

Pick gourmet salad greens from your window

Because there's nothing better than fresh-picked salad greens, you've got everything to gain by growing them indoors. I can't think of a better way to make store-bought lettuce more palatable in the middle of the winter. That's why I like to grow an indoor garden of lettuce, Asian greens or mustard spinach.

For that matter, if you have a window in a cool corner, try growing regular spinach. Treat your pocket garden produce as gourmet "cut and come again" greens by harvesting the tender leaves when they reach 6 to 8 inches in height. What's more, after cutting, most plants send up new shoots to give you a second or third cutting.