The Accidental Homesteader: What I've Learned About Chickens, Compost, and Creating Home by Kathi Lipp

Author:Kathi Lipp
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736977012
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
Published: 2023-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

A Windowsill Herb Garden

The most basic homesteader project you can absolutely, 100 percent accomplish is starting your own herb garden. I promise, you can do this.

I keep an impressive array of dried herbs on hand, but the longer we live up here on the mountain, and the more our gardening skills improve, the less often we use those dried herbs. Instead, we head straight to the kitchen window to get all the flavor we need.

And we need a lot of flavor. Since we don’t go out to eat nearly as often as we did living in the city, it’s important that we really enjoy our meals here on the homestead. Our lives up here, and our different choices, aren’t better or worse than anyone else’s. They are simply different. But having fresh herbs on hand? Definitely puts a mark in the “better” category.

You can start an herb garden from seed, but if this is your first time and you just want herbs right now, head over to the garden store. For the price of a dried bottle of crunchy flavor, you can purchase a fresh, replenishing plant that keeps giving you flavor for a year or more.

If this is your first foray into gardening, let me tell you that I am the woman who has always had a black thumb. I tried large-scale gardening projects but rarely had success. If I can grow a windowsill herb garden, you can too.

Here are some of my favorite almost-foolproof herbs to grow:

Basil: Caprese salad is one of our most favorite dishes to make in the summer because it is 100 percent made on the mountain. We bake the bread, grow the tomatoes, make the cheese, grow the basil, and buy the oil and vinegar from a farmer up here in our postage-stamp-size town. It doesn’t get much more “farm to table” than that. (And it’s super impressive to show visiting friends all the places their meal came from.)

Peppermint: This may be a close rival to basil as the easiest herb to grow. If you are looking for a homesteading confidence booster, grow some peppermint. It is foolproof, even for new homesteaders. I love to clip the peppermint leaves to put in our iced tea. You can also infuse peppermint into a simple syrup to add to your tea or coffee.

Chives: A baked potato’s best friend. We use chives in our sauces, eggs, soups, and dips. Chive plants are so easy, they almost grows themselves. We have some in our greenhouse that we ignored after a big winter storm, but they just kept doing their job and produced chives all through the spring and summer.

Rosemary: I love this herb. I use it constantly in chicken dishes, and there is nothing better than roasted and smashed potatoes with some rosemary. This grows like crazy in our garden and on our porch.

Cilantro: Roger makes his own salsa, and cilantro is a key part of his recipe. He will make as much salsa as possible based on our tomato and pepper production, and I try to keep him well stocked with cilantro.

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