There Are So Many Easy Ways to Grow Inside This Winter

Is the weather crushing your gardening vibe? Don't worry. You don't need to wait until spring to grow a little bit of your own food. You don't even need to sacrifice a lot of space in your home to having an indoor garden.

My first ever gardening success was a little pot of chives that my mom gave me and that I kept in my kitchen windowsill during the colder months. I had four small children, and I barely found time to brush my teeth, but I could snip some chives for a morning omelet and suddenly feel like Martha Stewart.

Projects like that pot of chives are a great way to get introduced to the garden or fill in gaps when you can't necessarily grow outside thanks to the weather. You can start gardening right away, wherever you are, no matter how much actual gardening experience you have.

I have found so much joy from doing each of these projects right on my kitchen countertop, and I know you will, too.

Grow Your Own Basil Herb Container Indoors

If you miss cutting basil from your outdoor garden, then here's a way to bring that magic indoors. All you have to do is take cuttings from a basil plant and grow them indoors. I've had a basil container growing inside my kitchen for months, and it's doing great.

Here's what you'll need:

• A basil plant from the grocery store or farmers' market
• A pot at least 12 inches wide and just as deep, plus a draining tray
• Mix of compost and potting soil to fill the pot
• A bulb dibber (or something to push into the soil to make nice, wide holes if you don't have one)
• A glass or cup filled with fresh water

How to Grow Basil All Winter Long

Follow these steps to take cuttings from your basil plant and root them in water. Cuttings are ready to be planted when they've grown 2 to 3 inches of roots.

To plant your rooted cuttings, use a bulb dibber to make nice, wide holes so that the basil roots don't get damaged as you're placing them in the soil. Each hole should be as deep as the roots. Place each rooted cutting into a hole and push some soil around the base of the herbs so they're secure and supported. As you can see, I plant mine pretty close together. 

Place the container in a sunny spot that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight a day. Baby your basil container for the first couple of weeks as the plants get used to growing in soil instead of water. Check on the water levels every 3 to 4 days. And then just watch as your little basil plants take off.

Once your plants are established, harvest from them regularly to tell the plants to keep growing for you.

The great thing is, you can keep taking cuttings from your rooted cuttings and turning those into new basil plants all winter long! The basil party never has to end! This is how you harvest basil year round.

Grow Garlic Greens Indoors Year Round

Don't worry if you missed the window to plant garlic outside. You can still grow garlic greens indoors after your first frost—actually, you can grow them whenever you want! You'll end up with chive-like stems to cut and toss onto meals, so this is an easy way to have fresh garlic flavor without growing an entire bulb outdoors.

If you're planting garlic in your garden, this is also the perfect project to use up those smaller cloves that you skipped over in favor of the largest cloves. You can still get a harvest from them by growing them for their greens.

Here's what you'll need:

• organic garlic from the store or farmers' market (you want organic to ensure it hasn't been treated with something to prevent sprouting)
• a pot at least 9 inches across filled with a mix of compost and potting soil, plus a draining tray
• a dibber to make planting holes

Follow these steps to plant your garlic:

• Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving as much skin on as possible.
• Use a dibber to create planting holes. Plant cloves with the pointed tip facing up. I do about 5 cloves in one little pot. You don't need to leave room for them to develop nice, juicy bulbs since you're just growing them for the greens. Cover up the holes once you've planted all your cloves.
• Water your garlic in.

Place your garlic pot in a spot where it'll receive 4 to 6 hours of sunlight. Anywhere near a window is great. Water it about twice a week to keep the soil from drying out.

In a few weeks, you're going to see green growth popping up. You can start cutting from them whenever you'd like. You could use these fresh greens as garnishes, in herb dips, as toppings for soups and salads—the possibilities are endless. It'll be so amazing to bring garden-to-table freshness to your dishes this winter without doing all that much to grow them!

I hope you'll try growing your own garlic chives indoors this season and perhaps for the rest of your life.

Grow Sprouts Indoors Without Any Sunlight

This is a gardening project you can absolutely do every single day, all year long, no matter where you live. Sprouts are super nutritious, so fresh, and delicious. They're a great way to bring fresh flavors to your kitchen table during times of the year when nothing's growing outside.

Growing sprouts means taking seeds through their first stage of growth (producing a little root and a shoot). That's why we can grow sprouts indoors without any light and in practically no time. While it might take 35 or 40 days to grow a full radish, you can grow radish microgreens in just 5 days and get all the radish-y flavor!

Here's What You'll Need:

• a container that can hold water (a bowl, a jar, etc.)
• a mesh strainer
• a dishcloth to use as a cover
• seeds labeled to be grown as sprouts (I love the sprouting mixes from Rainbow Heirloom Seed Co.)

You don't need light. You don't need soil. You don't even need any tools to harvest them. It's really that simple.

Here are the simple steps to grow sprouts:

• Fill your container up with water and soak your sprouts for at least 12 hours. You might already see the little seeds swelling up and shaking off their seed coats after this first step.
• Strain the seeds and then spread them out over the mesh to allow them to dry. (Quick PSA: Use the water that you drained from the container to water your indoor plants. It's filled with nutrients.)
• Rinse and drain your seeds at least twice a day for 5 to 7 days. Cover them after rinsing.
• Give your sprouts a final rinse and enjoy them!

Sprouts are great in salads, wraps, and sandwiches. They make a great garnish for dinner. I love radish sprouts on a bagel with some cream cheese—they add a little crunch and a whole lot of spice. There are a million ways to enjoy them and benefit from all their nutrients. I'm telling you, fresh sprouts are something you can't just buy at the store. The only way to get them at their flavor and nutrition peak is to grow your own at home.

Now, raise your right hand and promise me you'll grow sprouts this winter!

Regrow Green Onions from the Store No Matter How Cold It Is Outside

Green onions can grow in a windowsill 365 days a year, and it's super easy to get started. The really fun part about green onions that most people don't know is that they regrow from the root; you won't be able to harvest from the same plant from now to infinity, but you can cut them three to five more times before you need to start all over.

Here's what you'll need:

• a bunch of organic green onions from the store or farmers' market, roots intact
• a pot that's at least 6 inches deep (8+ inches is even better) filled with mix of compost and potting soil, plus a draining tray
• a bulb dibber to make planting holes
• scissors

Here's how to plant your green onions:

• Put your green onions in a glass of water, roots down, until you're ready to move them into a pot.
• You can either cut the green onions straight across right above the point where the leaves branch out, or use your scissors to cut all but the innermost shoot. Green onions grow from the heart of the plant, so this second method preserves the newest growth. Use the green onions you cut for dinner!

• Use the bulb dibber to make deep and wide holes so that you don't damage the roots as you plant. Make sure the entire white section of the bulb is buried. Push some soil around the base of each little green onion.
• Water your pot.

Place your pot somewhere it can get 4 to 6 hours of sun a day. Check the soil every other day or so to make sure it never dries out completely. It'll take a couple of weeks to get new growth from your plants. Once your greens have grown a couple inches, you can begin trimming them back.

They're so great to add flavor to any dish. And one really beautiful part about doing this is there's no waste. You use the top part of the plant and leave the bottom part to grow more green onions for you in just a couple of weeks. This basically triples, quadruples, quintuples each and every purchase of green onions from the store.

Cut from This Salad Container Again and Again

If you, like me, miss homegrown salad from the garden in the middle of winter, then here's an easy way you can grow you own greens indoors. 

Here's what you'll need:

• a 12-inch-wide pot filled with a mix of compost and potting soil, plus a saucer
• optional: earthworm castings to sprinkle on top of soil for a nutritional boost
• seeds for your favorite lettuce (if you don't have a favorite, mine is a blend called Rocky Top lettuce from Baker Creek) or arugula

Here's how to plant up your salad container: 

• Sprinkle some earthworm castings onto the surface of your soil. Press the soil flat with your hand. 
• Take your salad seeds and sprinkle them over the top of the soil. Try to avoid overlapping seeds. 

• Sprinkle a light layer of compost or more worm castings over the seeds. Lettuce seeds like a bit of light exposure to help them germinate, so you don't want to bury the seeds—just lightly cover. 
• Gently water the container. The seeds are tiny, so you don't want to displace them. 

Keep your container evenly moist, especially while you're waiting on the seeds to sprout. Lettuce plants do not like for the soil to dry out. You can set your container somewhere sunny, though you'll get bigger leaves if you put it under a grow light. 

You should begin to notice little greens emerge in about 5 days. By day 20 or so, you can begin cutting your first little baby greens. You should be able to harvest from each plant several times before you need to replant your container. 

Quick tip: If your greens start forming really long stems like in the picture below, that's your sign that you need to move them to a sunnier spot or put them under a grow light. They grow long, or "leggy", like that because they're straining for light. (These were grown in my kitchen windowsill, which faces west).

This is how you grow your own salad months before you can plant lettuce outdoors. You're going to love how easy it is to have your own fresh leaves right inside your home! It may just spoil you so much that you can't go back to the grocery store variety. And that, I think, is a problem that you can deal with. 

Grow Microgreens Indoors All Winter Long

You can grow microgreens year round, rain or shine, frost or heat wave, because these little plants aren't affected by the weather at all. The only thing that matters to them is the environment you create for them. Microgreens are incredibly nutritious, and you can harvest them right on your kitchen table without making a mess.

I have to say, growing microgreens probably helped preserve my sanity that first winter in Chicago. Every time I harvested my own teeny tiny leaves, I felt joy, when before I'd felt despair to look outside and see nothing green.

You don't need a ton of space to grow microgreens (I have them set up in my basement), but you do need a bit more of a setup than these other indoor gardening projects have required. Head over to this post to check out all the supplies you'll need, and then grab our ebook to learn the steps to grow your own microgreens.

Tips for Indoor Gardening

Here are a couple tips to keep your indoor garden project mess-free this winter:

• Make sure the pot or container you select has at least one good-size drainage hole. Drainage is extremely important for growing plants indoors. (In fact, bad drainage might just be why you struggled to grow anything indoors before.)
• Place a coffee filter or a little piece of weed barrier cloth at the bottom of the pot to keep the soil from washing out the hole when you water.
• Terra cotta pots are always a great option. The material helps to regulate the moisture level in the soil.
• Pull your plants off the saucer and set them in the sink to water them. Let the water run out of the drainage holes in the bottom before you return the plants to their saucer.
• Your plants might suffer if you transplant them into a pot and then head out of town for the holidays. (Speaking from experience.) These projects only work if you take care of them. That's just a law of gardening.

Find more tips for indoor gardening success.

Garden Indoors with Me This Winter!

Even if you just pick one of these indoor gardening projects, you will have some big gardening wins this season. Even if you live in an apartment. Even if you have just a little bit of window light to grow in. These projects can work for all of us.

These projects also make for great gifts to give to friends to introduce them to gardening. Get them started with some great soil in a cute little pot, and print them off some care instructions. You never know—your friend could soon be feeling like Martha Stewart, too!

If you haven't started an indoor garden project yet, this is your sign. Don't expect fruit or big, beautiful flowers, but do expect the best leaves you've ever tasted. Trust me, the best is yet to come!

Thanks for making gardening ordinary again, whether you're growing in a huge space outdoors or one little windowsill!