Growing Organic Indoors

If you’d rather start small with your indoor organics, herbs are a great way to go. Many of these—basil, marjoram, and parsley, for instance—only need moderate growing space, and can give you months’ worth of fresh leaves to add to your cooking. The Natural Gardening Company, the oldest certified-organic nursery in the U.S., sells more than twenty herb varieties online (and will happily answer any questions by phone). To find a local organic nursery or seed company that you can visit in person, check out the list of suppliers at GreenPeople.org.

CONTAINERS You can use your imagination for this part; ceramic flowerpots, wooden window boxes, metal tubs, plastic bowls, and just about any other vessel you can think of—all will work fine. (I even read about a woman who grows her organic herbs in Styrofoam tubs—although something about that seems oxymoronic to me.) Containers that are at least three inches deep will work best; they’ll give your plant roots plenty of room. Drainage holes aren’t necessary, as long as you don’t over water.

Keep in mind that while lettuces, radishes, and some other veggies can be grown in large pots right from the seed stage, others (like Brussels sprouts and some larger tomato and pepper varieties) do better when they’re started in peat pots and then transplanted when they start to leaf. Your seed packages or nursery staffer can tell you which varieties require this.

SOIL To make sure you’re really growing organic, you’ll need to choose your soil carefully. Many commercial potting soils are mixed with synthetic fertilizers—verboten for organic produce. To find a pre-packed potting soil that meets organic criteria, look for a label that says “OMRI Listed.” OMRI—the Organic Materials Review Institute—is a nonprofit organization that monitors products to ensure compliance with national organic standards. Black Gold and Fox Farm are two popular OMRI-listed brands; you can buy them online at Plant’It Earth.

FERTILIZER Another super-important part of organic indoor growing is making sure you’re using an OMRI-listed fertilizer. (Some veggies and herbs only need to have their soil “fed” once, at the sowing stage, but others do better with regular meals.) Organic fertilizers come in several forms, and can contain all kinds of ingredients—including seaweed, fish oil, bone meal, and even bat guano—but chemical additives and synthetic elements are strict no-nos. One tried-and-true brand is Earth Juice, a potent liquid fertilizer that you can buy from merchants that sell natural garden supplies, like