2 posts tagged “gardening”
For a few weeks now I have been meaning to share my "green thumb" story. Turns out I have one!!! For the past few weeks we have been using home grown basil, dill, and parsley when we cook.... salads, ministrone, herb-crusted salmon -- It's so rewarding to include something we grew with our dinner. It makes dinner feel fresher - even if its only in my head.
Adam thinks I'm nuts because I nibble on basil leaves when I'm in the office.... looking forward to having enough basil for a tomato, basil, mozerella salad, or even a home-grown pesto sauce.... it's pretty funny that we are growing herbs on the windowsill of the 26th floor, but it is working better than I could have imagined.
Next time around it should be more successful, because now I know that the seeds really do need to be placed further apart. About a month ago, I dug up the oregano that wasn't really working and seperated the basil into two containers. Since then they have grown considerably faster. Take a look! Basil on the left, pretty much taking over the container, and parsley, which I just chopped, on the right - it grows so fast!)
I just replanted more dill - we used all of the first batch already, and decided to give oregano another try (again, seeds too close), so that's what's going on on the left.
{PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK}
One of the things I had been looking forward to in our new place was having the ability to TRY and grow some herbs we could use when we cook - I have fond memories when I was little (very young, pre-divorce) of eating vegtables my dad had grown in our garden. I figured I would work my way up to vegatables.
Well, without a house, I thought this might have to wait another year. We went to Lowe's this weekend to get some fresh soil for our plants (they were starved of nutrients) and while we were there, we got these mini "windowsill greenhouses" -- it's a small plastic container that holds 24 of these little soil pods. The soil is in these little discs and they expand after you add water -- Gardening for Dummies! We decided to each be responsible for one greenhouse - Adam is attempting to grow dill and oregano and I am growing basil and parsley.
We did this project on Saturday afternoon and are already seeing little spouts flourish. The top photo is Adam's - no idea which herb this is. I would like to take credit for what is growing in my greenhouse, but I can't -- Our friend S showed up right when we were placing our seeds in the little pods. He was so critical of the crappy way that I was burying {actually the problem was my lack of burying} the parsley seeds that I let him do the basil.
Stay tuned as we track the herbs!
