Congratulations on your herb garden. I've been growing several varieties of basil in a bay window in my kitchen for a little over a year now. It actually does well for me in terra cotta pots though they need daily watering in the summer heat. I now have some chives growing there as well but most of the window is taken over by plastic pots with various seedlings since things sprout good for me there. The basil has been manageable for me there cause I use a lot of it so am always pinching to keep the plant short and the variety of basils in terra cotta pots make the window look very nice. I found that plastic pots stay wet too long there and some plants don't like that. I do tend to overwater though and have to watch myself. Herbs are really fun to grow and your cooking will taste so much better than using dried herbs from the store. I'm still pretty new at this myself but growing herbs has been very rewarding for me. Ania

Indoor plants that aren't rootbound only need water about once a week and only enough to where a little water appears in the saucer. I have houseplants that are over 20 years old that have never been watered more than once a week, and some Fridays I forget to water so they wait until the next Friday or until I notice they are drooping. I haven't grown herbs indoors, but they can stand quite a bit of neglect outside. I've overwintered huge pepper plants inside, and I just water them once a week too. Good luck!

I had a similar problem and posted this exact same question back on the GardenWeb boards. The general consensus was that it was a rot. Most that commented said that basil is a very difficult herb to get to survive an extended period of time indoors. The plant I had lasted months outdoors in a pot just like that. Within a month or so of coming indoors to winter my leaved browned and the plant began to die.

Hi all, It's been awhile since we've done our last update on our herb garden. We went away on vacation for a few days and came back to some sad looking plants. We made sure the jars were full before we left, but unfortunately our plants were too thirsty. The basil and mint plant jars were bone dry and the plants were drooping like crazy. This is a picture from our cat sitter from halfway through the vacation. She was a bit worried! Luckly for us, when we got back all we had to do was refill the jars and a day or two later we had some happy and healthy plants. We've already had a couple meals with the basil and the parsley. I'm in the process of looking up some great Mojito recipes for the wife and me. Looking forward to those! Here are a couple pictures of the happy plants that I just took this morning. They love this light! Crazy roots!