I know I already said it, but this humidity is BRUTAL. Oy vey. I went for a run today and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it back home! Hopefully it rains soon so we can get some relief.
The good thing about all this sunshine is that my garden is EXPLODING. In the best way possible, of course. :) I’ve got to say, it’s a pretty incredible feeling to start something from a tiny little seed, and watch it grow into something huge…and even better, something that you can eat!
My basil plants have a had quite a journey:
…the life of my basil.
To me, the most amazing plant I grew from seed is the garlic. I saw online that you could grow new garlic from the garlic you buy in the grocery store. I was skeptical, so I only planted four. Turns out it is SO easy to grow garlic. Apparently I’m growing it out of season, which means I will have small bulbs, but I am okay with that. It’s really amazing how huge the garlic has gotten–I had no idea what a garlic plant even looked like before this.
now THAT is some major growth.
Huge, right?! I bought my jalepeno plant, so that started off well. It’s gotten much bigger, and is starting to get flowers–which means peppers will be coming soon, hopefully! I’m looking forward to making some delicious fresh spicy foods. :)
My mint is a funny story. Dan’s stepmom Victoria gave me a small piece of her mint plant last fall. I put it in the garden, and then never touched it again. It sat there all winter, uncovered, unprotected, and not cared for at all. Completely forgotten. So imagine my surprise when I walked outside in the spring to plan out my garden, only to find tiny mint plants sprouting! I moved it into a bigger pot, and it is thriving. So if you’re looking for an easy-to-grow plant, apparently mint is super resilient. :)
Yes, yes…this will make excellent mojitos. :)
Rosemary took quite a while to sprout. So long, that I started a few more plants. I do love rosemary though, so I’m hoping the growth will take off when I transplant it to a bigger pot outside! I’m hoping to get that done sometime this week so that it can grow a little faster.
rosemary is pretty cute. :)
I have plenty of other stuff growing that I didn’t manage to get very good pictures of. My lavender is slow to grow, just like the rosemary–but I started a few more seedlings of that as well, and I plan on transplanting the existing plants outside this week too. My chives continue to grow, and grow, and grow…I’ve got to harvest some more and give them away because I’m basically drowning in chives!
One of my celery plants pulled a Jesus-style move–I planted it in the pot. I waited and waited…and waited. When nothing sprouted, I dug into the pot and the celery is…gone. Completely. Like it was never even there!! It’s so bizarre. I keep thinking that maybe some animals managed to eat it…but there was no hole in the surface. Maybe bugs? Or maybe it just rotted under the surface? Who knows. The other plant is sprouting, but seems to be having a lot of trouble. I think something might be picking at it. Not sure that it will make it, but I’ll keep hoping!
poor little guy.
The cilantro is growing just fine–but the plants keep getting tangled in one another, so I have to be careful when I’m trying to detangle them. They do look mighty fine, though!
My tomato plants seem to have grown a foot in the past week. It’s pretty overwhelming. I’ve never grown tomatoes before, so I have no idea what to expect…I’m faking it ’til I make it, here. :)
Dan’s stepmom gave me a few new plants that I’m excited for as well. One is Lemon Verbena. I guess you can boil it in water to make tea. It smells FANTASTIC, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
She also gave me some fennel. I need to repot it ASAP because it is HUGE! I’m not really sure what I can use fennel for, but I’ll figure something out. In this picture it’s a bit droopy because it had just been transplanted from her garden into a pot.
Finally, she also gave me some thyme and lemon thyme. I didn’t snap good pictures of those guys, so I’ll share those later.
It’s so hard to believe that I have THAT many plants growing here at home. All of them are in containers, and in a tiny little garden at our condo. One thing I have learned is that when it comes to gardening, you’ve just got to give it a shot. I think a lot of people, especially apartment owners, are nervous about the idea of growing herbs and veggies at home. Based on the research I’ve done online, many plants actually thrive in containers. And from my experience, you can get some pretty good stuff without having to do much maintenance. Even if it’s just herbs, it is such a great feeling to raise something from seed to harvest. I’d encourage anyone to give it a shot–there are many resilient plants out there that will forgive you when you mess up. I have found it’s a fun, worthwhile endeavor to grow some of your own food. I can’t wait to have a house someday so that I can have a legitimate garden! In the meantime, I’ll continue to experiment and learn a whole lot along the way.
walk in love. 