Start a Cooking Garden with These Herb Kits

Want to add some plants to your space, but unsure what kind to get? If you also cook a lot, an indoor herb garden is one of the least intimidating, most useful ways to introduce plants into your home. You can grow the herbs you need for your favorite dishes right in your own kitchen window!

Some herbs do grow best outdoors, and others might outgrow their starter pots and require more space. But you can easily grow smaller versions of most plants just a few steps from your kitchen.

Each of these herb garden kits comes with everything you need, including seeds, soil, pots, growing guides, and more. They’re perfect for everyone, from total novices to experts.

Best Organic: Spade to Fork Organic Herb Kit

One of the benefits of having your own, in-home herb garden is the ability to control all the factors that matter to you. If organic herbs are your preference, then the Spade to Fork Organic Herb Garden Kit is just right. It’s an adorable set of small pots and plants that are organic, useful, and easy to grow and use.

Not only does this set include cute details, like label-stakes and peat pots, but it’s all from a small, family-run farm in Oregon. Grow organic basil, cilantro, thyme, sage, and parsley, all in your own kitchen, with rich soil disks included to give your plants all the nutrients they need to grow into the perfect cooking ingredients.

Best Variety: Planters’ Choice 9 Herb Window Garden

It doesn’t get much easier than this Planters’ Choice 9 Herb Window Garden kit. Nine small pots, nine different, common kitchen herbs, nine stakes with labels, and pre-fertilized soil discs are all included with the complete kit. You’ll have everything you need—just find a place to set it up and add some water!

The plants included have a wide variety of some of the most popular herbs used in recipes. Basil, cilantro, oregano, and parsley are all included, along with slightly more unexpected herbs like mustard. If you’re just starting out with an herb garden or have limited space, this kit is a great way to get started without basically turning your house into a greenhouse!

Best Small Plants: Sower’s Source Indoor Herb Garden

Get your first window herb garden started with the five plants included in the Sower’s Source Indoor Herb Garden. The kit comes with everything you need to get started: five packets of seeds, soil discs, plant markers, and biodegradeable starter pots. Relatively small in size and easy to start growing, they’re the perfect plants to perch in a window and get a head start on providing herbs for your cooking.

They’re small enough to put in the kitchen window, handy to pick a handful for any recipe, and can grow to full size if transplanted into a bigger garden. Depending on your individual needs, you might eventually need to transplant to a bigger pot—keep an eye on your plants to see what they need to thrive as time passes.

Best for Tea: Planters’ Choice Herbal Tea Kit

Tea lovers will appreciate the ability to grow four different varieties of tea leaves in their own kitchen with the Planters’ Choice Herbal Tea Kit. Chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm, and red clover are all included, and the kit also includes a durable stainless steel tea infuser to make the tea once the plants have grown.

Growing herbal tea at home is a slightly different variation on the usual herb garden: Rather than growing herbs to use in your cooking, you can grow the plants that make some of the most popular herbal teas. Once the herbs are ready to be used, you can simply pick them, dry them, then brew the tea using your infuser.

Best for Beginners: Home Grown Indoor Herb Garden Starter Kit

For anyone intimidated by the idea of starting an herb garden, starting off with just five of the most useful/common plants and all the necessary supplies might help get over that initial learning curve. That’s what comes in the Home Grown Indoor Herb Garden Starter Kit: all the supplies you need to start growing your own basil, mint, cilantro, parsley, and chive.

In addition to the supplies—which include pots, saucers, ready-made soil rounds, and labeled markers, along with the seeds—the kit comes with a complete guide to planting, sowing, and germination. It’s the perfect choice for anyone who’s nervous about trying a DIY kitchen herb garden and wants a step-by-step guide to getting it right.

Best Hydroponic: AeroGarden Bounty Elite Herb Garden

Most indoor herb gardens are more traditional, with ordinary pots and seeds to be placed in a window to grow. The AeroGarden Bounty Hydroponic is a complete kit for growing without soil or even natural sunlight! Get started with soil-free hydroponics with this full kit, including a growing system that accommodates up to nine different plants.

The kit also comes with nine individual herb seed pods, liquid fertilizer, and a trellis to help them grow, with the ability to accommodate plants that grow up to 24 inches tall. The easy touchscreen controls and LEDs make it surprisingly easy to grow your herbs without having to worry about soil texture or sunlight.

Best Low-Light: Environet Herb Garden Kit

The Environet Herb Garden Kit comes in several combinations for different plants. If your indoor garden is likely to get limited sunlight, this kit has a low-light option. Just choose the package with mint, parsley, cilantro, thyme, and sage.

Smaller plants with softer, more flexible leaves tend to do the best in windows that don’t get as much sunlight. That’s why this particular combination of herbs does better in that type of situation.

You still want to set them where they can get the best light possible, but they’re not quite as sensitive as some of the other popular garden herbs.