Winter is officially here, but that’s no excuse for settling into the easy chair to wait for spring gardening. All vegetable gardeners need to do is grab a copy of Elizabeth Millard’s new indoor gardening book and start planting.

Indoor Kitchen Gardening (Cool Springs Press, 2014) is filled with creative ideas for “turning your home into a year-round vegetable garden.” The author shows how she grows microgreens, sprouts, herbs, mushrooms, tomatoes, and peppers indoors. No special equipment is needed.

All you need is an adventurous gardener’s bent for experimenting with plants. Millard claims “a kitchen-window herb garden with good light can yield plants nearly as big as if they were grown outdoors.” And she has the pictures to prove it.

If you can grow houseplants on a sunny windowsill, there’s no reason you can’t grow something edible there, too. If you need supplemental lighting, the book provides good tips for selecting a simple lighting system.

The first step is to consider what you want to grow and to keep the list manageable. Millard offers these four questions help gardeners get started on their indoor gardening adventure:

• What do you hope to gain?
• How ambitious do you want to be?
• What’s your vacation schedule like?
• Are you looking for indoor-only growing or transfers between the kitchen and outdoor garden?

Your answers to these questions will help you design a workable plan for your indoor garden. Then it’s time to get started by evaluating available light, space, humidity, and pets and pests. 

Millard offers some crazy ideas for containers for planting. Just about anything can be put to use from partially broken drawers to wicker baskets; retired purses to an unusable rolling luggage bag. Make sure containers have holes for drainage and a tray to catch the excess water. Fill with a potting soil meant for indoor vegetable and herb growing. Then start planting.

The book is filled with inspiring and intriguing indoor images. A window box filled with microgreens. Swiss chard and peppers growing in a basement. A hanging herb basket. Potatoes in a container. Each picture demonstrates that it is possible to grow perfect produce indoors.

I enjoyed Millard’s book and ideas so much that I’m going to follow some of her best advice. I’m going to “go inside and play.”

(Cool Springs Press provided a complimentary copy of Indoor Kitchen Gardening for this review.)

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

Gardener's Log Book from NYBG

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

This weatherproof five-year log book includes the following features: · Sturdy waterproof cover to protect pages from rain and muddy soil · Lined pages and gridded paper for plotting beds · Five years of 12-month bloom and harvest grids for recording what you planted and when · Authoritative appendices on composting, pruning, pest and disease control, and container gardening · Useful reminders by season on fertilizing, mulching, and transplanting · Space for listing your favorite sources and suppliers.

Buy at Amazon

Corona E-Grip Trowel

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Handle Material: Aluminum. Handle Length: 14-1/2 in. Overall Length: 14.5 in. Head Material: Aluminum. Handle Color: Red.

Buy at Amazon

Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, Revised and Updated Second Edition: A Natural Approach to Pest Control

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

This revised and updated edition of Jessica Walliser’s award-winning Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden offers a valuable and science-backed plan for bringing balance back to the garden. With this indispensable gardening reference—now updated with new research, insights, and voices—learn how to create a healthy, balanced, and diverse garden capable of supporting a hard-working crew of beneficial pest-eating insects and eliminate the need for synthetic chemical pesticides.

Buy at Amazon