Do you live in a flat with no allotment plot or garden? Well that is not an excuse not to grow your own. Even on your small windowsill you can grow some vegetables and some you can sow even now. I have a large plot but still I like to have some easy and quick to grow leaf vegetables and salads on my windowsill in containers every now and then.
You can grow lettuce for example almost all year around on your windowsill; the temperature is perfect for salad items to grow even in the winter inside, what is not ideal is the light as the days are short in the winter and the vegetables would ned longer daylights but they will still grow; a bit slower and not so well than in the summer months but you can still have some fresh veggies in your indoor vegetable garden. The best time however to grow vegetables inside from early spring till the autumn while there is still enough light.
What you need
All you need is a bag of compost and some pots or a window box or two if you have a large enough windowsill in your kitchen or living room. There are many different sizes if window boxes available in your local garden centres, choose a good quality one, it will worth the investment for the long-term; and you can fit more in a long thin box than in small pots in my opinion.
Lettuce, radish
The leaf vegetables are the quickest and easiest to grow in pots so if you just starting out I would advice to start with them. Baby leaf lettuce and rocket are quite fast and ready to pick in about 30 days. Radish and pack choi are quick-growing too but I know that not everyone likes the spicy radish and the pack choi is still an alien in many kitchens. Sow these vegetable seeds thinly on the surface and cover them with a little bit of compost. One good rule is to sow the seeds as deep as big the seed itself is. Water the containers form the bottom (use a saucer under them) so the splashing water won’t disturb the seeds or use a watering can with a very fine rose. Make sure you don’t over water. When the seedlings appear you might have to thin them out to give more space for the rest of the plants to develop larger leaves. You can of course use these seedlings as micro vegetables in your kitchen in salads or as a garnish.
Spring onions
Spring onion is an other suitable salad item to plant on your windowsill although it is a bit slower to grow than leaf veg. Spring onions are ready to pick after about 60 days after germination, but you can use the stalks much earlier instead of chives. Onions take a bit longer to germinate than salads but don’t worry they will come up after about 12 days. You can grow chillies as well and bush tomatoes to create a really lush veg garden indoors but those need to be sown in early spring.
No excuse not to grow your own vegetables even if you have limited space and time; even now in August you can sow salads, radish, pack choi, spring onions and many different herbs too.
