Setting Up Home: Herb Garden

I took the plunge yesterday and while picking up flowers for my MIL's birthday at the market. I popped into the herb booth and got a whack of herbs and even a tomato plant.

The tomato plant I'm really really hoping I can keep alive. It's well known I'm the least green-thumbed member of my family-even my dad was giving me pointers on Sunday! But hubs and I both love tomatoes, especially the ones I steal from my parents garden at the end of summer. So...the fam as a whole gave me a pot, one of those tomato stake things, some bone meal and some of those styrofoam ball thingies that help with water retention and drainage. (See---even if I don't know the names at least I know their purpose. I think that's more important). Also several pointers and a wide array of contradicting tips. Gweat. Hopefully I'll be able to plant that tonight----here goes nothing.

As for the herbs---I definitely prefer fresh ones in our cooking and buying them often enough that they remain fresh can get kinda pricey. Plus, sometimes I just want a mojito or garnish and it'd be great to have them at my fingertips. I *think* you can keep them all year long if you take care of them, so for that reason, I'd like to keep them inside.

Armed with that, where else to go for ideas and inspiration but google images?

When I was originally buying them, in my head was something like this:

Or this:

Cute right?

But I'm kind of on the less-is-more train when it comes to countertops and windowsills, especially in the kitchen where I like to close the blinds at night. With the right pots, I could still close the blinds over them, but those would have to be some pretty slender pots.

Some other ideas I liked/was intrigued enough to save were:

And after seeing the last two (and some less attractive versions of the same idea), I thought of doing something with one of these Ikea pots and saucers (in white):