Ideal Bite

Want to add some spice to your life when the temperature outside starts to drop?

11.10.2005

Submitted by idealbite on Thu, 11/10/2005 - 6:00pm.

The Bite:

Sadly, this tip is not as racy as that opener… Try growing herbs indoors this winter. It’s an easy and fun way to enjoy nature inside and add culinary, aromatic and medicinal flavor to your home.

The Benefits:

Free, fresh, organic herbs for your cooking all year. They add tang, zip, and a flavor that their dry counterparts cannot.

Keep chemicals off your plate - this includes your herbs and spices. The EPA considers 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides and 30% of all insecticides to be carcinogenic (cancer-causing).

Save a little energy, easily. Modern farming consumes 12% of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the United States.

Personally Speaking:

Heather brings herbs and geraniums indoors over the winter, while Jen has a big indoor window box of herbs that she enjoys seeing but forgets to use while cooking (probably because she would actually have to cook).

Wanna Try:

Give your herb plants at least 6 hours of light and add a little organic fertilizer to the water every three to four weeks. Start with rosemary, which is forgiving.