Introducing these herb garden ideas to your life is the best way to add that special something to your creative cooking and favorite recipes.
Rosemary, thyme, coriander – all of these herbs can be grown in your own herb garden.
Here we will look at the best ideas for herb gardens and how you can grow these plants at home. In this list, we will also take a look at herb garden ideas you can place outdoors or incorporate into your existing dream garden.
So before you hit the nearest garden centers, let’s gather some inspiration from the best herb gardens on the web.
P.S.
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Smart herb planters
Although it can be exciting and educational, growing herbs is no small feat. After all, each plant has its own ‘moods’ and preferences.
For beginners who might feel overwhelmed with all the requirements, a smart indoor herb garden can be the right choice.
Click And Grow & AirGarden
Smart planters like Click & Grow and AeroGarden come with everything you need to grow a proper herb garden in any kitchen.
They take care of light, watering, providing nutrients, and air your herb plants need to thrive regardless of what the weather is like outside.
Speaking of, in smart gardening systems, plants come in individual pods. You can get the herbs you most frequently add to your meals or pick up one of their starter kits.
In no time you’ll have a full-on herb garden with no hassle.
DIY herb garden using jars
Ah, the rustic charm of growing fresh herbs in mason jars!
Giving old jars a new life is a cost-effective and environment-friendly way to set up a charming mason jar herb garden. And having them all lined up on the window sill will look stunning. With this method, you can affordably set up a DIY herb garden in every room of your home.
Mason jar herb garden tips
A DIY herb garden in uniform containers is also prime real estate for decorating ideas. You can paint each mason jar a different color and adorn them with ribbons, stickers, printed tags, or chalkboard markers.
Setting up a mason jar herb garden is a pretty easy project to fulfill, as long as you provide a proper light source and drainage. To ensure they don’t rot you can either drill a hole in the jar or fill it with gravel, pebbles, or pottery shards.
[hygge_anchor id=”shelves”]Vertical herb garden ideas
Vertical window-mounted shelves
A hanging herb garden is a great solution for small spaces.
You can start growing fresh herbs anywhere, as long as it has a free vertical surface.
Vertical cupboard planter
In the picture above you can see luscious herbs in pots sitting on a wooden base installed directly onto a kitchen cabinet. This is a great way to grow fresh herbs when you don’t have a window sill large enough for planters.
Hanging IKEA planter box
But herb garden ideas are not limited to just containers and jars like these. When floor space is limited, you can set up a hanging herb garden by fixing hanging baskets directly to the ceiling using hooks.
Other ideas include hanging your vertical herb garden hanging from the rods installed across the kitchen window. Herb plants do need their sunlight, especially indoors!
Balcony herb garden ideas
If you are lucky enough to have a balcony or a patio, you can grow your favorite greenery in an outdoor DIY herb garden right there. And there are plenty of ideas for herb gardens out there to help you do it.
You can install several shelves on the balcony that will serve as the foundation for the herb garden. These can be wooden wall shelves, standalone shelving units, a ladder shelf, or wall panels that can double as privacy screens. Then you can get started with filling them with your potted herb garden, be it recycled jars, metal planters, or stacked plant towers.
Also, as previously mentioned, you can hang a few herb-filled vertical planters from the ceiling to cultivate fresh herbs and vegetables outdoors.
DIY herb planter pallets
If you are in the mood for DIY projects, you can create a small garden with herbs using pallets. This involves building garden beds in between pallet planks, which is one of the most space- and cost-effective ideas out there.
Wooden ladder shelves and stands
Keeping your herb garden on a dedicated stand has several benefits.
First, it creates a visual appeal in the room and turns your garden into a powerful accent peace.
Second, this herb garden idea allows you to save space in a small room or cramped spaces, like a balcony. It can also free up space on the window sill that you can populate with DIY tin can planter boxes or a mason jar herb garden.
Third, much like an herb garden spiral that we’ll discuss later, you can place herbs that like different conditions in the same space.
For example, rosemary, sage, and oregano that love sun and heat can sit on top of the stand, while dill and parsley that prefer shade can be placed lower.
DIY herb garden without soil
Another version of growing a kitchen herb garden on your windowsills involves hydroponics and propagation. It’s a great way to get started with cultivating your own herb garden.
Herb propagation
Propagation means cultivating a variety of herbs submerged in water, no soil involved. You put an herb cutting in a glass or bottle filled with water and wait until they develop roots. They can then keep growing in the water on your counter or be transferred into pots.
‘Soft’ types of herbs like basil, mint (perfect addition to a homemade iced tea), or stevia are easy to grow with this method. These will also do wonders for your decor as they bring this ethereal and chic quality to the room.
Soil-less hydroponic herb garden
Hydroponic herb growing involves planting them in a water tank filled with nutrients. This process is more complicated but it results in a more bountiful, year-round harvest. You can find useful tips on this DIY herb garden method in this tutorial.
Hanging herb garden wall
If you’re looking for an alternative to putting your herb garden on a shelf, this might be it. A hanging planter like this has pockets that you can fill with succulents, flowers, and, yes, herbs.
Modern flower and herbs accent wall
You can hang this fun multi-pocket planter on the patio, balcony, the backyard, or keep it indoors as a centerpiece of your kitchen garden. It sits almost flush with the wall which eliminates the problem of space constraints in a small apartment.
Plus, if you do decide to hang it in the kitchen, you’ll have a vast amount of fresh herb leaves to choose from while cooking, right there at an arms distance.
And it would make for a stunning and most creative kitchen accent wall, something we’ve touched upon here.
Tiered herb garden
We’ve already mentioned a garden spiral before, a tiered DIY herb garden system where plats on the top row get the appropriate amount of sunshine, and ones on the bottom can enjoy the shade.
This, however, requires the spiral to be created on the ground in your yard. If you’d rather have your DIY herb garden contained on the deck, porch, or in the patio area, a stacked plant tower will come in handy.
Space-saving plant tower
It is a tiered container that you can DIY yourself or buy a ready-to-use herb tower made of wood or plastic. The twist here is that you can grow your potted herb garden in a traditional soil-based tower or one that incorporates hydroponics.
Rolling cart herbal gardening
One of our favorite herb garden ideas is keeping your herb pots on a rolling cart. This fun idea of placing them in one spot like that has several advantages. First, situated this way, your fresh kitchen herbs won’t take up much space and, alternatively, will free up the windowsill.
Secondly, you can place the herbs that love the sunlight on the top level while the ones that favor cover go underneath them.
Third, having your favorite herbs sit on a metal frame with wheels means you can take them outside on the porch to catch some sunlight.
And lastly, a metal cart like that does wonders for a small space decor.
Zero waste herb garden
Wineless Creations
Here is one of the more interesting herb garden ideas for those who care about leading a zero-waste lifestyle.
Grow bottles for a beginner gardener
Grow bottles allow you to create an herb growing system by combining repurposed wine bottles and hydroponics. The bottles will take up little to no space on the windowsill forming a beautiful herb garden with a recycled twist to it.
Speaking of, you can indeed set out on a DIY project to make these herb grow bottles yourself. However, you can also get them as part of this herb garden kit that includes organic seeds and nutrient mix.
Create a summer herb garden on your window
If there is absolutely no room available in your home for a kitchen herb garden, there is still something to be done.
Window suction planter pots
You can use these containers that attach to windows using suction cups to cultivate a vertical herb garden. This way, your plants will get plenty of sun and growth without cluttering the kitchen.
If the weather suits, you can even attach this herb container to the outside of the window. Although if it tends to rain, it is better to keep the pot indoors.
Any home cook will appreciate the gift of being able to grow their favorite herbs to add to dishes despite the limitations of a cramped kitchen.
Magnetic herb planter pots
Here is another herbs gardening idea for those concerned with spaciousness. You can plant herbs in these magnetic pots that can be attached to your fridge. Of course, to be able to grow fresh herbs this way, the pots will have to be positioned facing the window.
It is an interesting alternative to growing an herb garden on a wall or on a shelf. Having basil and thyme on display like that is certainly an interesting look and is much better than having the herbs stuffed into a corner.
Needless to say, these planters are the stars of our earlier post on gardening ideas for small spaces.
Companion planting herb plants
We have been mostly focusing on indoor herb garden ideas. But if you already have a garden in place, there is no need to carve out new room for herbs.
Benefits of companion planting
- Such herbs as sage or catmint’s fragrance can repel pests while parsley, cilantro, and dill, on the other hand, can attract beneficial insects. Thyme, as a natural herb repellent to worms, can protect your strawberries and cauliflower.
- If you are growing vegetables, some blooming herbs (basil or mint) can help attract pollinators to less flashy vegetable blooms.
- There is another way in which vegetable gardens can benefit from herb neighbors – taste. For example, planting basil close to tomatoes can enhance their flavor and make your dishes pop.
Lazy Susan herb garden
The best of the best herb garden ideas for a home cook is to keep their culinary close. Placing all your herb pots onto a Lazy Susan is a great way to quickly have a fresh batch of herbs in your hand.
Nowadays you can get Lazy Susans of all shapes and sizes, or you can repurpose an old one in a true DIY style. You can even use it as a centerpiece on your dining table. The smell from the herb garden planters will enhance your dinner experience tenfold.
DIY hanging herb garden
Here’s an idea. Instead of mounting a rod across your kitchen window to hang the herbs and flowers, why not just use the rod you already have for your herb garden?
Curtain rod herb garden
Use your DIY skills to create a container herb garden that hangs from the curtain rod in your kitchen. You can use dedicated hanging containers or mount ordinary baskets using a rope or a ribbon.
Three or four pots of herbs and flowers will provide you with coverage for privacy. You can use uniform pots for a more minimalist look or go with a more eclectic style of decor for your hanging herb garden.
Teacup herb garden
Prepare for one of the cutest DIY herb garden ideas in existence.
If you have a spare collection of old teacups or deep dishes, you can use them as a foundation for an herb garden. You can assemble teacups of different colors and even quality, where chipped edges will add more beauty to the arrangement on a shelf.
This method will be best for a young herb that has been propagated after pruning it off a more mature plant. Once the plants grow larger you can transfer them into a more suitable container herb garden.
Raised herb garden
There are many benefits to companion growing herb gardens outdoors.
But if you’d rather set your outdoor herb garden apart from the rest of the plants, you can create a raised bed for them in the corner of your lot. You can simply use old planks of wood to set up the frame and fill it with soil. Plant your herbs two feet apart and remember to mark them with decorative posts.
Like something? Don’t forget to Pin these ideas for an herb garden to your ‘Gardening’ board!
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