How I Kitchen Garden In Our Apartment

 

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT KITCHEN GARDENING – GETTING STARTED IN YOUR APARTMENT OR BALCONY

If you have been following me on Instagram you already know that I have been doing a lot of kitchen gardening. Most of you also know that we live outside India. We are in Doha, Qatar. Here temperature in summer can go up to 42  degrees so I never thought I would be able to grow any plants. But soon I discovered that some plants can grow in low and moderate sunlight too.

So I started to reuse the scraps and utilized the window sill (my best bet!) instead of keeping the plants outdoors under the sun. Two months into kitchen gardening, I thought it’s time I share what I learned with my reader family here. I know you are as excited as I’m. So just don’t wait. Jump on and read how I kitchen garden in our apartment.

If you have any questions you can leave them below in the comments section. I’d love to help you grow your own garden.

What I’ve planted so far in our apartment:

SPRING ONIONS

These have been the easiest to grow. All I did was chopped for the green part and used it up for a dish. Instead of discarding the roots, I placed them in a bottle. That’s it. They grow like magic. I swear. But keep in mind you will need to change the water every other day so the roots don’t become mushy or rot.

Alternatively, you can plant them in a pot and place it over your window sill. They will survive in low sunlight. Water once a day.

GARLIC

Apparently, garlic takes at least 100 days to be ready to harvest. For planting, I selected a fresh garlic bulb and separated the pods, then I planted each pod leaving some space between each pod. That’s it. Our garlic plants are at least 1.5 months old now. When planting remember the flat side of the pod goes down and the sharp rot points upwards.

FENUGREEK

It’s one of the very easy microgreens to grow indoors. All I did was, soaked a few fenugreek seeds (methi) overnight. Soak no more than 24 hours. Soaking speeds up the germination process but soaking for too long may spoil the seeds. And you don’t want to sow rotten seeds. Sprinkle in rows and water once a day. Sometimes I do it twice a day too.

CORIANDER

For growing coriander, directly sow coriander seeds (also called Dhaniya). It’s pretty basic, nothing fancy there. Some people choose to break the seeds into the half before sowing. But that didn’t work for us. So I tried it again, this time I sowed whole Dhaniya seeds and they are growing well.

GREEN CHILLIES

For green chillies, I picked up 2-3 ripe green chillies from the grocery store, slit them up and sprinkled the seeds in a pot. I also threw in the chillies (outer part) in the pot and covered everything with the soil. Be warned chilli plant takes quite some time to show up.

In some countries, it takes up to 4 weeks. My plant started to grow just when I had lost all the hope maybe after 2-3 weeks of sowing the seeds. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to water it. Keep watering and it will eventually grow.

What I plan to grow next

1. Spinach
2. Peas
3. Mint
4. Baby Carrots
5. Cherry Tomatoes

Growing plants at home is such a great activity for grown-ups and children. My kids are as excited as I’m about every tiny plant that emerges from our seeds. It’s also a great way to encourage reusing scraps like ripe chillies, spring onions, herbs etc.

I started our kitchen garden by growing spring onions.  What do you want to grow first? I’d love to know if I inspire you to take up kitchen gardening. 🙂