A kitchen garden is a garden in which you grow produce-presumably to prepare in your kitchen. Many kitchen gardeners grow enough food to eat throughout the growing season, and much more that they preserve to eat through the winter. A small kitchen garden is one intended only to provide produce that you consume in "real time;" it leaves little or nothing to preserve or give away.

It's challenging to plan for your exact needs through a growing season. Vegetables and fruit become ready on their own schedules, and despite your best intentions, some plants might hit peak production during a family vacation-or when you're simply too busy to harvest and prepare the goodies. So, I don't recommend designing a garden simply to meet the "consume it in real time" criterion.

In truth, most small kitchen gardens are small because the gardeners simply don't have space for anything larger. Once you've tasted home-grown produce, you tend to prefer it, so most of us want to squeeze maximum production out of whatever space we have-even if it means tossing stuff in the freezer or canning it for later use. That said, even having plenty of space for a large garden, a first-time gardener should consider starting small and simple. Here is a step-by-step guide to growing a very small kitchen garden, indeed.

The project

The goal is to grow an herb in a container from seeds. For this discussion, we'll grow basil, though you can use the same steps to grow just about any herb.

Containers

Most herbs-including basil-will outgrow small containers. That's OK. You can still use very small flower pots if you don't have room for larger ones. For one very important reason, use a pot that's at least 4 to 6 inches across and equally as deep: smaller pots dry out more quickly; the smaller the pot you start with, the more often you'll have to water to keep your basil alive.

Select a container that has at least one hole in the bottom to let excess water drain. If the container doesn't come with a platter or pan to contain the drainage, find something appropriate-a saucer, a pie pan, the bottom quarter of a gallon milk jug-and set the container in it.

Soil

It's best to buy potting soil when you plan to start seeds in a planter. If you use soil from your yard or garden, it may not provide good nutrition for the herbs. Worse, it may contain unwanted seeds that could sprout and overrun the desirable plants. Buy enough general-purpose soil to fill your planter.

Seeds

You may be able to find herb seeds year-round in a dedicated garden store. If they have none in stock, they might be willing to order some for you. Of course, seeds are much more available locally in early spring. You can click one of the seed packets in this hub to buy seeds year-round from Amazon.com. A single packet of seeds will be enough for just about any sized planter... and to plant many six-inch flower pots.

It takes far longer to explain how to plant basil seeds than it takes to plant them. Here's the procedure step-by-step:

Cover the drainage hole - I told you to use a planter that has a drainage hole in it. While the hole is helpful, it provides a place for soil to escape from the planter. So, begin by loosely covering the hole with pebbles, foam packing peanuts, or shards of a broken flower pot. In most cases, this bottom layer should be as thin as possible-just enough to slow the movement of soil... and make sure this layer doesn't seal the opening!

Add soil - Now fill your container to within one inch of the top with potting soil. Don't pack the soil in. Rather, dump it into the container and gently smooth it around with your hand, a trowel, a spoon, or whatever. And absolutely don't fill the planter to the very top; that inch of empty space serves as a reservoir, giving water a chance to soak into the soil rather than run off and down the sides of the pot.

Deposit seeds on the soil - Open the seed packet and pour a small pile of seeds into the palm of your hand. For a six-inch diameter pot, you need only a smudge of seeds-perhaps what a cook would refer to as a "pinch." Don't sweat it. If you start with too many seeds, you can correct the problem once sprouts appear in the pot; you'll thin out the plants then so the pot doesn't get over-crowded.

Pinch a few seeds between your thumb and forefinger, and sprinkle them around on top of the potted soil. Watch as they fall to get a sense of where the concentration of seeds is heaviest, and where it is lightest. Then, take a second pinch of seeds and sprinkle them onto the soil, trying to land them in the areas you left thin with your first pinch.

The goal is to spread from 15 to 30 seeds evenly on the soil. If you're using a three-inch diameter pot, then try to distribute 10-20 seeds evenly on the soil. If you're using a 12-inch diameter pot, try to distribute 20 to 40 seeds... if this seems like rocket science, then forget all of it and try this: Sprinkle some seeds around on the soil.

Cover the seeds (barely) - You may not be able to see the seeds you've added to the pot, but it's still important to cover them with a bit more potting soil. Because you're planting basil, sprinkle almost a token amount of soil over the seeds; it takes a combination of moisture, warmth, and light for the seeds to sprout, so you shouldn't bury them deeply.

Add water - Watering newly-planted seeds can be messy. Dry potting soil may not suck up water easily. As well, potting soil might float... or at least some components of it might, so watering can quickly rearrange the seeds in a flower pot. Be patient, and try only to sprinkle water on the soil, never adding enough for standing water to develop. This first watering may take a while because it's important to soak the contents of the flower pot from top-to-bottom. You've probably succeeded when you see water emerge from under the pot into the collection pan you set it in before you started.

This early in the life of your basil plants, it's a good idea to leave a quarter or half inch of extra water in the collection pan. As the soil in the pot dries near the surface, more water will soak into it from below.

Wait - Set the planter wherever you can that provides a lot of sunlight. Basil prefers lots of sun, but my basil planter does great with only a half-day of direct sunlight. Don't completely ignore your basil... check the pot daily to be sure the soil is still moist. Don't let it dry out!!! If it's not visibly damp, gently add water as you did when you planted the seeds. Alternatively, when there is no standing water in the collection pan, top it up-if you keep water in the pan, the soil should remain moist right to the top of the pot.

Basil babies should appear in your planter in five to ten days. If nothing sprouts within two weeks, then something has gone wrong, and you should start over. Once sprouts appear, cut back on the water; add more only when the soil begins to look dry on top.

The young plants may be quite crowded, but don't rush to thin them. Give them another week after they sprout. Then, if they're so tightly-spaced that they're practically stuck together, very gently pull out plants or pinch them off at the soil to leave two or three growing in each square inch of the soil's surface. Try to leave an even distribution of plants in the pot. But don't be too concerned about how crowded the pot is. Once the plants develop four or five sets of leaves, you can gently pull up whole plants to use as seasoning while leaving others to grow into the newly-open space.

How you harvest basil from your very, very small kitchen garden should depend on how crowded the plants are in the planter. Your plants will be most happy when there is a lot of space-four to six inches-between them. But they'll do fine even when they grow two or three plants to the square inch.

The good news is: when your plants are very crowded, you can pull several of them to use as seasoning, and there will be plenty left to keep growing for later. Honestly, I've never thinned my plants to any "ideal" spacing, and I've never been disappointed by the production. In good soil and with plenty of sun and water, even crowded plants will find a way to thrive.

To get the most from your basil crop, let five or six sets of leaves develop on the stems, and then harvest by clipping off the newest growth on several stalks-the top cluster of developing leaves, and one set of leaves below it. The plants will produce new shoots where the lower leaves connect to the main stems. Harvest only as you need basil, and always from the tallest stalks. The plants want to flower and make seeds, so if you don't keep pinching back the leaders, you'll eventually discover what a basil flower looks like.

The end of the season

Frost destroys basil. If you're growing basil outdoors, you'll know there was an overnight frost on the morning the leaves develop ugly, dark blotches-or a freeze if they all simply turn black or brown. When you hear that first frost is likely, consider:

• Move the plants indoors or give up on fresh basil for the season
• Harvest what's left and make pesto (and freeze it)
• Harvest what's left and freeze it
• Harvest what's left and dry it out to use in place of store-bought bottled basil dust

I don't care at all for classic pesto made with basil and pine nuts, but it seems to be very popular. The box to the right links to some hub pages that offer recipes for making pesto.

You might also consider buying a great book called Very Pesto for more ideas about pesto made with basil or other home-grown herbs. Click the link to the right to buy your copy from Amazon.

Freezing basil

Rinse the basil and do your best to remove the water from the leaves-gently pat it or roll it around on a towel. Place bunches of stalks into zippered freezer bags, and put those in the freezer. To use frozen basil, remove what you need from the bag, and chop it up and add it to your cooking while the basil is still frozen.

You can also freeze basil by making a paste much like pesto: chop the basil in a food processor with a little water and olive oil, and fill ice cube trays with the resulting puree. Put the trays in the freezer, and repackage the frozen basil mixture into zippered freezer bags to use as-needed.

Dried basil

To dry basil, cut the stalks off below the bottom leaves and hang them top-down in a dry place for a week or two. Pick the dried leaves from the stems-or chop up the leaves and stems-and store them in a sealable bottle or a plastic bag with a zip seal.

More gardening

I hope you feel confident to start your own modest kitchen garden with a simple container of basil to season your salads and sauces. Please check out my blog--Your Small Kitchen Garden--for more insights into growing your own produce.