10-Minute Easy Indoor Herb Planter (That’s Simple To Maintain!)

Need some new indoor herb garden ideas? Try a different approach with this indoor herb garden that can easily be transported outdoors depending on the weather… A simple DIY indoor herb gardening project that takes under 10 minutes!

The Easiest Indoor Herb Garden

I’m just going to put this out there — I’m a total container gardening failure.

Over the years, I’ve shared several posts about how I’ve started an indoor herb garden and then… crickets. My guess is some of you probably wondered why there were no follow-up posts.

The truth is: I completely and utterly suck at nurturing a tiny seed into a thriving herb plant indoors. Outside? No problem.

But my indoor sprouts just seem to shrivel up and wither away, and I’ve yet to pinpoint the exact problem. Too much water? Not enough water? Too much sun? Too little sun? A cold draft? Sigh, I just don’t get it…

So when I received an email asking me to share some tips for planting a DIY indoor herb garden, I felt a little inauthentic trying to portray myself as an indoor herb gardening guru.

BUT after wandering around Walmart recently, a bit of inspiration struck. So I decided to give an indoor herb planter another shot!

Easy Herb Garden Planter

So what am I doing differently this time? Well, I changed two key principles in my latest easy herb garden attempt:

1| I used a container that is easily transported from indoors to outdoors and back. If I’m being honest, this was totally unplanned. Originally I was just going to use a terra cotta planter that I already own, but I spied this adorable utensil caddy at Walmart recently.

It dawned on me that the galvanized steel and 6 compartments would be perfect for planting herbs. AND the handle makes it super easy to carry it out of the house and back in again — you know, depending on the fickle spring weather.

2| I purchased herb starters from the garden department at Walmart. Yep, instead of trying to grow my herbs from seed, I figured caring for nearly mature plants would be SO much simpler! (Spoiler: it TOTALLY is.)

Even so early in the growing season, they had a great selection available. I snagged rosemary, sage, oregano, parsley, and thyme. Basil was also on my wishlist, but I couldn’t find any basil plants in the garden department.

However, I did end up finding one sad-looking little basil plant in the produce department… I’m hoping that it will flourish with a little love and care!

How To Start An Indoor Herb Garden

Planting my herbs in the utensil holder was simple enough. I started by adding some aquarium gravel to the bottom of each section to help with drainage.

I’m pretty sure it would be easy enough to drill some small holes in the bottom instead, but the gravel seemed like the simplest option — and I’m all about simple and easy!

For most of the herbs, I could just peel off the top portion of the biodegradable pot and squeeze the whole thing down into a square. Then I filled in any gaps with potting soil.

The basil plant was quite a bit smaller than the others, so I did need to add some additional potting soil before setting it in. Plus I needed to fill in quite a bit more around it.

DIY Herb Garden Planter

I gave my planted herbs a small drink of water and voila… Not only can I move my little DIY indoor herb planter around easily at will, I can actually start using small cuttings from it right away. That’s what I call 10 minutes well spent!

Sometimes the appearance of my favorite fresh herbs in the produce department is a bit questionable, so I’m thrilled to have a better option ready to use.

And truthfully, each plant already yields about three times what I’d get in one of those small plastic clamshell containers for just about the same price — so it’s by far a more frugal option. I can’t believe I didn’t think to try this easy herb garden hack sooner!

What’s your biggest challenge with an indoor herb garden?