The winter is always a fun time to pick up new indoor activities. Especially those that help you forget that it’s freezing out.

It’s always hard for my family to go from picking fresh herbs and vegetables from the garden all summer to then having to purchase them all through the winter. We all get really spoiled from the fresh, nutritious stuff we harvest all summer.

I recently began my hunt for an indoor garden, and while it’s not as fun as the daily trek to the backyard, it is fun adding a little greenery to the inside of my house. Plus, having thriving indoor herbs and vegetables lets you bring a little summer into your home.

If you are looking to start an indoor garden there are plenty of ways to do so. Here are 5 of the best kits on the market to get you started:

  • 1

    Garden Republic’s Indoor Herb Garden Starter Kit

    This kit is the perfect way to get introduced to indoor gardening. It comes with Cilantro, Italian parsley, English thyme, Genovese basil and a pot and seed tray. The kit comes with easy instructions and once you get the hang of it you can purchase several other products from the brand.

  • 2

    Mr. Sprout & Co.’s Winter Indoor Garden Kit

    If you love to embrace winter flavors you will enjoy this kit. It comes with sage, cayenne, peppermint, thyme and lemon basil. If I had this kit I would be making Peppermint Mocha all day long.

  • 3

    Mountain Valley Seed Company’s Medicinal & Herbal Tea Indoor Herb Garden Starter Kit

    If you haven’t yet found the perfect tea, maybe growing your own will lead you in the right direction. This kit comes with calendula, chamomile, echinacea, hot pepper, lavender and yarrow. This is a fun idea if you are into tea and want to learn more about how it's made.

  • 4

    Aero Garden

    Many scoff at the Aero Garden, but anyone I know who has it loves it. It’s an indoor fresh herb and veggie garden and you can grow all year around indoors. It’s pretty compact, allowing you to grow only up to 6 plants grow at a time, and up to 12 inches tall, but what I love about it is that it is hydroponic—your plants grow in water, not soil, so there’s no mess. It’s pretty foolproof, too, with a control panel that tells you when to add water, reminds you when to add plant food (included), and automatically turns lights on and off for your hydroponics growing system.

  • 5

    The Farmstand

    This is the Rolls-Royce of indoor planters. And it works outside too. But you can spend anywhere from $499-$999 on it. It is an absolutely gorgeous pot like vessel that can grow plants from 12-36 inches tall and uses 95% less water than traditional gardening. The self-watering, self-fertilizing Farmstand makes it easy to grow your own food at home. After you select your Farmstand you want, the company will help you figure out what to grow and how. And there’s a lot to choose from: over 200 varieties of pre-sprouted seedlings so you can grow kale and lettuce varieties to your favorite herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and more.

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