Mint: FAIL!

Not to turn this into a competition or anything, but when it comes to growing mint, I am among the worst. See for yourself.


Tiny, tiny leaves


Long scraggly stems like vines

Let this be a sort of ego-boost for Kea and MooCow!

I'm Not the Worst Garderner In the World!

Remember last year when I was complaining about killing off mint? Well, I'm still killing off mint. I don't understand. I moved it to a less sunny spot and it was doing so well through this winter, and now it's gone all scraggly again. As you can see here, almost all the lower leaves have turned brown and dropped off. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the fact that it's been raining for a month (I did my best to keep it shaded). I know it isn't root-bound because I re-potted it recently. Oh well, maybe mint's just happier in cooler weather. But everything else is doing much better.

I managed to grow a lot of things from seed this spring, which is a first for me.

Thai and Italian basil:


Well, the green pot on the right was a gift, but the others I grew from seed.

Now I have more basil than I can possibly eat.

Marjoram: inexplicably stringy-looking, but otherwise healthy.


Parsley: I didn't know parsley grew this big.


And check this out. I planted bell pepper seeds from a bell pepper I ate, not really expecting anything to come of it, and I actually got a mini bell pepper. It was amazing to watch it grow on the stem (I swear it got bigger overnight), but it only reached a couple inches diameter when it dropped off. I have no idea why. Still tasted decent, if a bit bitter. I made hummus with it. If I'm lucky I'll get a couple more peppers before winter.





Meanwhile, I've been keeping my thyme alive. The one in the middle was a gift from Ceddy and Char at my housewarming party. I nearly killed it and for months only a few little sprigs on it survived, like the last holdout strands of hair on a baldie in denial. It would die, it would grow back, it would die again. More water, less water, made no difference. I called it the Zombie Thyme. Eventually I re-potted it in a half-gravel half-potting soil mix, and it made a miraculous recovery.



You sure learn some odd things on gardening sites. Who knew that chamomile tea and cinnamon are anti-fungal agents? That's how I prevented my basil seedlings from keeling over from damping-off disease this time around.

I also learned that commercial potting soil is usually too heavy. You've got to mix a bunch of perlite and vermiculite into it. So now I joke about spending my money on not just any dirt, but executive dirt.

My experiment with soil-less hydroculture was also an abject failure. Unless you stick to water-loving, abuse-proof houseplants, you have to go pretty high tech for it to work.

So maybe by now, I deserve promotion to World's Second, or possibly Third Worst Gardener? Because I'm still killing mint.

Losing the battle with Nature

Last summer I set up a little herb box out my kitchen window. When the herbs died back in the winter, I didn't do a thing, figuring that I would just replace them in the spring. Well, lo and behold, they survive the winter and start looking all sprightly and green. Thoughts of parsleyed rice pilaf, chive omelettes, chives in vinaigrette start to float through my mind...I noticed that the chives tended to lean a little forward for some reason, but I figured they were just reaching for the sun.

Then, two days ago my new DH told me, "There's a bird sitting in your 'huh-herbs'," as he likes to call them. No wonder they were flat!! So I promptly stick little toothpicks throughout the box, thinking, "Take that, Bird! Now you try and sit your little ass in my grass!" This morning I looked out the window though, and there she was, bold as brass, cooing in my parsley. I shoo her away, and the little miss doesn't deign to fly away until I start lifting up the screen! She flies about 10 feet away to rest on a telephone wire and I grumblingly stick more toothpicks into my box. I should've known it was a futile gesture by the way she watched me so unconcernedly. In fact, now that I think about the way she was perched on the telephone wire, she looked rather....constipated. This afternoon my DH came home, looked out the window and said, "Your bird dropped an egg in the box."

And there it is. As are the felled toothpicks in the foreground.

My first, overwhelming urge was to pick the egg out of the box. But then I realized that I didn't have the heart to try to do something with the egg once I'd picked it up...throw it out our second floor window? Lay it on the brick ledge where the mother would knock it over as soon as she tried to move it? Turn it into a mini omelet with my new chives, as my evil aunt suggested? All would be bad karma. My DH called over his shoulder, "Face it, you lost the battle when the toothpicks didn't work," and he's right. Oh well, I can concede defeat gracefully when I must.

Now I have a buh-bird box instead of an huh-herb box.

Pl(ants) hate me

Being a hopeless drowner of plants, I decided to experiment with hydroculture. I drown plants, so I want to grow them in water? Am I crazy? But supposedly, it's harder to root rot plants in clay pellets, which allow for more aeration, never compact, and wick the water up from the bottom as needed.

So I set about converting my basil to hydroculture. This involved very carefully washing all the soil off the roots, potting it in clay pellets, placing a plastic bag over it to keep up the humidity, keeping it out of direct sunlight, and waiting a month.

Amazingly, it survived. A lot of its bottom leaves went yellow and fell off (which is normal), but the top half seems relatively healthy, a few brown crispy edges notwithstanding. And I started to see new water roots peeking out the bottom of the pot. So I was pretty happy about it, until I noticed that a bunch of ants were building their nest in the pot. Ants!

This morning I noticed swarms of ants very obviously crawling in and out of the clay pellets. I submerged the entire pot in a bucket of water, and was horrified to see dozens and dozens of the little blighters swimming for their lives, amazingly, carrying their little white eggs and their big fat queen with them. Boyfriend squished the queen for me. I had to unpot the plant, drown the remaining ants clinging to the roots, pour boiling water over the clay pellets, scrub out the pot, and then re-pot it. This time, I set it in a moat. It's official. Plants hate me.

The Capital District Garden and Flower Show

Even though I most certainly should have been doing my reading for class tomorrow, academic papers on ecological valuation (basically, putting a dollar value on the natural world) palled in comparison with the prospect of going to a garden and flower show. I have ethical reservations about the entire concept of ecological valuation, as I am sure many environmentally-minded people may do - but that is neither here, nor there.

I almost missed this event. I certainly didn't know about it until I went to my bank on Friday afternoon to make a deposit. Just as I was turning away from the teller desk, I saw a little information card and picked it up. It just so happened that that card was also a $1 admission coupon. I almost didn't go this morning, but I was curious to see what I could learn there.

There were flower displays with various design themes, submitted by professionals, people from the local garden society, and amateurs. I only took pictures of the ones I liked the best. The one above was designed with a theme of repeating containers. It was very dramatic (the containers looked black in reality), and I found the combination of roses and bird-of-paradise very fresh and unusual.

This next, asymmetrical arrangement, was much nicer in reality, too. I tried fiddling with my camera settings, but I couldn't prevent the overexposure. The flowers are arranged in a conch shell, and the delicate pinks and peaches of the tulips and orchids echo its tones.

This next, impressive arrangement (the design theme was Roadsidia, meaning things you can find on roadsides - natural materials such as rocks, twigs, moss, etc.) also looked much nicer in reality. Some of those twigs are flowering quince, and just beginning to bud and bloom. There is also a small bird's nest in the centre of the arrangement.
Finally, I found my gaze continually drawn back to this "vignette". Out of all the different coloured vignettes there today (white, pink, purple, blue), I found this one the most striking, and not just because of its colour. There are interesting objects included in the scene, and some unusual flowers were included as well. And it is so cheerful, on a cold, overcast day.
I went around all the displays and stalls and gathered information on community gardens (which will be useful for a green space project I am doing with a group in one of my classes; see, I got some work done!); I found out about a new food co-op they want to start in Troy (just across the river from me); I attended seminars on flower arrangement, caring for a propagating African violets, and general gardening, and I managed to do a shameful amount of shopping as well.

I found a gem of a stall, the Apothecary Rose Shed, that sells quality organic herbs and spices. At the moment, they're a mail-order business operating out of Latham, NY (about 10 minutes away), but they will be opening a brick-and-mortar shop in Rensselaer (next county over) soon. The owners were very friendly and knowledgeable. I bought some lavender (for baking, and tea), rose hips (also for tea; I've never tried them before, but they're very high in vitamin C), and some American saffron.

They opened up their huge container of saffron and let me smell it, and it was divine! They had two types of Spanish saffron as well, but they were both around $10 for a very small amount, whereas I bought 1/4 cup of the American saffron for $1.50. Yes, the lady told me, the colour and flavour aren't as intense. But, since I've never cooked with saffron before, and would like to experiment, and since I don't have a Spanish-saffron budget, I thought this stuff would do nicely.

I bought some raspberry jam from Gypsy Wind. She also had some very interesting, spicy blueberry jam (when I mean spicy, I mean with the addition of chili peppers), which was nice, but I wasn't sure I would eat an entire jar full. Then, I bought two flavoured honeys from Traphagen's; hazelnut and lemon. Yum!
I also couldn't resist these soaps, from Simple Scents Australia (an Australian company, but with a distributor in Massachusetts). I can never buy enough nice soaps, since I'm always giving them away to people, or using them up myself. From the top down, I have frangipani, jasmine, lavender blossom, chamomile & calendula, and honeysuckle.
And so here I am, back at home again, but having enjoyed myself immensely and having garnered more gardening knowledge. I was surprised at how many non-garden related booths there were, and was a little disappointed we didn't have more of the local nurseries and garden centres represented, but it was definitely worth a visit.

From Garden to Plate

So those seedlings I started last month have, for the most part, grown and thrived. The borage, as you can see, has grown like a weed.

The basils, marigold, parsley and sage are great, too. Even the dill looks pretty healthy.












But the chives just aren't growing, something in the garden really likes nibbling on my nasturtium leaves, I'm not sure the calendula has come up at all, and I can't decide whether that stuff is chamomile, or a weed. The oregano could not be coaxed out of the soil. I think I'll have to try again with that one!


Still, I'm having fun! I wish I had time and space, and money, to plant all the things I want to grow. Several more kinds of basil, three or four varieties of mint, scented geraniums, thyme, lavender, rosemary, and vegetables!! Next year, I shall vegetables!

But, baby-steps. I've got my herbs, and I know how to use 'em! It was so hot today, even this evening, it was painful turning on the stove for a quick pasta with olive oil, green peppers, tomatoes and garlic. So I turned out two extra, easy "salad" items to stimulate my appetite.

Tomatoes with fresh basil from my garden, lightly drizzled with olive oil, and a cucumber salad with a yogurt-dill dressing (augmented with some dried dill, because my little dill plant isn't up to major harvesting yet). Pesticide-free, organic herbs that I've been waiting for! Ahhhhh!

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Posted by Lana to Bumbling Bees - Gardening at 7/17/2006 09:10:00 PM

What am I supposed to do now?

This is how big my plant has gotten now. Just look at this thing! I've already run out of stalk for it to climb up.

I don't understand why it's not growing more leaves. I see a few leaf buds, a couple of leaflets, even. But mostly it's just making more and more vine. Not enough sunlight, maybe?

I've tried moving it to a sunnier location (the middle of my bedroom floor, very awkward), but I still don't think it's enough. My apartment just does not get that much sun.

Would it help if I nipped the terminal bud off?

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Posted by Kea to Bumbling Bees - Gardening at 7/14/2006 04:27:00 AM

Mondo Democracy Bean of Doom

Okay. You know my democracy plant? The one I posted about two days ago? It's this big now.
It grew six inches in 2 days. I transplanted it to a bigger container, and it's already outgrowing it - the roots are starting to stick out the holes on the bottom. You can see the white roots pressing up against the side of the plastic.

Help! What the $*!#^ is this plant?? I have never seen anything grow this fast! Soon it's going to take over my kitchen, strangle the parrot, swamp the apartment building, strand Boyfriend in the elevator for a week without a machete, and colonise the entire block.

Meanwhile, in this week's news, Hong Kong's notorious and much reviled former Minister of Security Regina Ip, a woman who made Maggie Thatcher seem nurturing in comparison, has undergone a full political conversion and announced her support for democracy. Maybe this plant is an omen.

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Posted by Kea to Bumbling Bees - Gardening at 7/08/2006 04:00:00 PM

My democracy plant

Meet my democracy plant. I got it at the democracy protest last saturday. Audrey Eu (the politician) was selling them. I don't know if you've seen these things, but they come as a big bean inside a ceramic egg. You're supposed to crack the top off the egg and water it, and hey presto, a bean plant with appropriately Festive Phrase (tm) printed on the side grows out. I have no idea how they do this - the bean pod itself was blank, so how did they get the words on the plant? It's magic. Unfortunately, I dropped the egg on the tram on the way home - the bottom just fell out of the paper bag! I was sad. I broke my democracy egg.

But I planted the bean anyway, and here's what I got. It says "universal suffrage" upside-down, in Chinese. Sorry I couldn't get a less blurry photo.

I'm gonna try really, really hard not to kill it. Maybe if it grows, we'll get some democracy? Come on magic bean, do your work.

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Posted by Kea to Bumbling Bees - Gardening at 7/05/2006 03:47:00 PM

Life Is Miraculous

It was sunny, then rainy, by turns this past Saturday. I got up early in the morning because the weather forecast had been for blazing heat, and I wanted to work in the garden before it became swelteringly hot. I managed to break up and loosen the soil in my plot, and prune the rose bushes, before the rain really started coming down.

Then I retreated into the house to plant the seeds I'd planned to start indoors. These included four kinds of basil, parsley, dill, oregano, sage, chives, cilantro, and marigold and heartsease for fun.

I went to a local garden centre and bought some Jiffy peat pellets just for that purpose. This being my first major seed-starting enterprise (I did plant a couple of things in Japan), I decided to make things a little easier on myself.

The Jiffy pellets are easy. They come dried in little discs, and you soak them in water until they've expanded, complete with a little dimple on top where you plant the seeds. I put two or three seeds (depending on the size of the seed; oregano seeds are so small they're almost dust, whereas coriander seeds are a relatively big) into eat dimple. Then you cover the seeds (if the packet says to cover them; some seeds need light to germinate) with a tiny bit of potting soil or seedling mix.



I planted 3 sweet basils, 3 Italian parsleys, 2 garden sages, 2 chives, 2 Sweet Dani Lemon basils, 2 Spicy Globe basils, 2 Siam Queen basils, and one each of fernleaf dill, oregano, cilantro, marigold and heartsease. As you can tell, I love basil! But the two flowers (marigold and heartsease) are edible, too.






The basil seeds were pretty amazing! They started out small and black, with a hard, shiny coating. After I dropped them into the damp peat pellets, they started reacting within minutes!! They developed an almost fuzzy, translucent, white coating that you can see in the picture.

After planting indoors, the rain had stopped and so I went outdoors and direct-seeded some chamomile, calendula, borage and nasturtiums. That was Saturday, and I had all my seeds planted for the moment. Yeah, it's kind of late to start seeds, but I ordered mine online, and they didn't arrive until after the housewarming.

Then this morning, before work, I went to see if any of my seeds had germinated. Once they do, you need to give them good light. I wasn't really expecting to see anything, but lo and behold! A germinating winner!
The marigold, which had had such pretty - but insubstantial-looking - seeds, had sent up a shoot! I think that's pretty amazing.

And today, after work, I noticed one of my Sweet basils, and a Siam Queen, had germinated, too!

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Posted by Lana to Bumbling Bees - Gardening at 6/19/2006 09:24:00 PM

Makeshift plant pots

One of Boyfriend's friends brought me a couple of little plants at our housewarming party. The pots they came in looked way too small, though, so I transferred them into these plant pots I made out of jumbo distilled water bottles.

It was amazingly hard to poke holes in the bottom for drainage. I tried hammering it with a nail, to no avail. I actually had to get my electric drill out. The plastic is really thick there! Add a few strings and a hook, and they hang from my kitchen window bars. I think they're kind of cute in a DIY sort of way. (Right now they're above the sink, dripping. Plus the backlighting at the window makes it difficult to photograph them there.)

I've got leaves turning yellow already. I can never tell if it means I'm watering too little, or watering too much...

Weather's been miserable lately. It's been raining for 2 weeks straight. Blech. My parents are probably real peeved because it means they can't play tennis (they're both obsessive about it.) Hmm.. Which reminds me. Father's day is coming up. What to do, what to do? Ma's easy. Just get flowers. Never know what to get for Dad, since anything he wants he'll just go and buy himself.

Hmmm.