Indoor Gardening: Window Herb Garden

Spring may actually be here.  We will see.  But for now, the sun is making me happier than I have been for a while.  A bright day can even make me productive! 

I've had an idea that I wanted a herb garden in the kitchen for a while since we have that nice big window in there-- but no ledge.  I have found a lot of inspiration online for ideas to add plants to a space where there is none.  The most inspiring and inventive DIY solution I found came from A Beautiful Mess (of course),  but I don't have a workshop, or all those great tool to work with.  Plus, it wasn't really what I wanted.  I wanted to make sure that I could have different types of herbs, which is difficult if they have to share a planter.  So I needed something that would separate the plants. 

On a wander through Ikea (my favorite place!) I saw these great hanging planters, and thought of a new plan for my hanging herb garden.  These pots are the perfect size for the herb plants they sell at my local grocery store, so I bought 3 and planned my herb garden for my kitchen window.

Want your own hanging herb garden?  Here's what I used:

Shopping List

3 SKURAR Hanging planter pots from Ikea- $4.99 ea ($15.00)
3 herb plants, I found mine at my grocery for $2.99 ea ($9.00)
3 plastic planting pots, because my herbs came in biodegradable pots- 1.00/ 6pk
3 hooks, I bought a package of 6 white vinyl coated hooks so that they would be inconspicuous- 1.00/ 6pk

I love how they look in our very small kitchen.  It makes it much more alive!  Here's what I learned while hanging and planting our herbs:

• I shortened 2 of the pots chains by removing 11 links from each chain.  To do this I used some needle nose pliers and twisted the 11th link.  
• If your plants have biodegradable pots, you will need a plastic pot to put them in, or else once the pot breaks down, your plant will be sitting on the bottom of the planter, and there will be no room for drainage. If you don't have plant pots, you can re use yogurt containers with some holes in the bottom.
• Use hooks instead of nails, it provides space between the plant and the window for blinds or drapes.
• Herbs need direct sunlight, so make sure you hang them in a sunny window.  Our windows face west, so we get late afternoon sun.

D and I finished this in just under an hour.  And it made me so much happier!  I'm not sure if I'm going to shorten the chains some more that that they are all the same length, and sit in the top half of the window.  We'll see how they grow like this.  Do you live in an apartment?  How do you fulfill your gardener's itch?