Easy, Inexpensive Window Sill Gardening

With a minimal investment of time (1 -2 month), space (4 inches wide), and money ($25), beginning gardeners can enjoy rapid results by planting seeds in an indoor window sill garden.    

On my 4 inch wide window sills of two, four foot (double paned) windows that face south, I fit six plastic six- pack planters each (twelve packs total, 72 plant holes). Starting March 10 (still winter here - it snowed until May 3), I planted the seeds of a variety of herbs, flowers, and vegetables. My expectations were low because the setting wasn’t the greatest – the window doesn’t offer full sun all day (because of spruce and birch trees) and the temperature inside our log cabin varies from a low of 53 at night to a high of 69 during the day, and the temperatures just beyond the window were below freezing every night. 

May 3, 2013 snow fall in front of the shower house

Of the 21 plants I started indoors, below are my notes on the fastest, easiest and most robust ones that grew on my window sill from March 10 through May 5 (today), during one of the coldest Aprils in Alaskan history. Since they did so well for me, I hope the results inspire readers to try seedlings on window sills of their homes, classrooms, or perhaps, offices or hospital rooms.    

  

Appreciate Where You Are: Rural Alaska or the Big City

(the following article was recently published at  http://uuministryforearth.org/reflections ) 

One night, while preparing a labor-intensive risotto for dinner in our Houston high-rise, my husband ambled into the kitchen and asked, with studied casualness, “Honey, if I could buy a piece of undeveloped land in Alaska, under market value, would that be OK with you?” Who knew that five years later, we would be living full time in a two room log cabin with an outhouse, forty-two miles from the nearest road, having sold our high-rise and given away most of our belongings. 

March view from front porch

Obviously there are a number of “why?” and “how?” and “why?” again, questions raised by that paragraph.  Here, I'd like to focus on three things I appreciate more because of these changes but also things I appreciate about the city I left. But first, the setting: