First-timer growing sage indoors: please advise!

[ashlee]

Hello everyone! Brand new to the forum and excited to get some advice from seasoned herb growers.

So I hope this isn't bad news from the start, but I received one of those "garden in a bag" kits as a gift and thought I'd at least give it a try- it came with seeds, soil, and woodchips. It's been 2 months now and my sage is actually alive!!! I have NO IDEA whether I'm doing this right though. Here are some concerns I have, with a photo posted at the bottom. [FYI, I live in DC in an apartment with zero outdoor space (can sage even grow indoors for its entire life? Ack!).]

1. Does it seem a bit leggy to you? And is it bad that the stems aren't growing straight?? (Glade spray is in there for scale.) I've just moved it from my window to about 10'' underneath a couple fluorescent bulbs I have in my house lamp. Right choice?

2. Is the bag too crowded, and/or does it need more soil? I just used whatever was in the kit.

ANY AND ALL advice is welcomed! I should note that I'm a poor grad student with extremely little time and money- I'm hoping that sage is fairly low-maintenance but tell me if a successful sage requires resources I don't have, like a lot of attention or an outdoor space for later.

Thanks so much!

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30402442/photo%20%2882%29.JPG[/img]

[garudamon11]

Well, I say all you need to do is get a pot and some more soil and put the plant in that, then put it next to the window that gets most light, thats all.

Anything can grow indoors btw, as long as theres space and light.

[Sage Hermit]

Salvia officianalis what looks you have there. At least 4 seperate plants plants can be made from that bag you got. Get 4 cntainers. fill em all up with dirt. Take the whole sage plant out and shake off the dirt and reuse it. look at the stems. The light green ones can be separated easily into a new plant by detatching it and a little root along with it. It helps to run water over the roots to see wher you want to detatch the stem and root from the larger mass of leaves and roots and stems. Cool little plant.

Sage is a trooper.

[rainbowgardener]

What everyone said, separate your plants and give them more soil. Your bag is just for starting the seeds with, not for growing big plants.

But yes, they are looking a bit pale and leggy. You can use the fluorescent light (if you are now going to have four plants, you could think about getting a shop light fixture and fluorescent tubes for them that's how people start getting hooked on this hobby), but closer than 10" would be better.

Sage is a sun loving herb. It is not my experience that it would make it on a windowsill without supplemental light, especially through the winter when hours of daylight are shorter. But you should be able to keep it going if you can arrange to give it plenty of artificial light.