Meet My Friends: Basil, Rosemary, and Oregano

Pesto smothered paninis. Mmmm
Homemade bread with an aroma of rosemary and melted butter. MMMmm
Italian pasta with oregano laden tomato sauce. MMMMMMMMMMMMM

You get my point. Meet my new friends that I will be taking care of for the next months:

Basil.
Rosemary.
Oregano.


Herbs... my cupboard is full of them, but they are all dried. It's inexpensive to buy the dried herbs, and they don't spoil right away like fresh.... but the FRESH taste so much better and the flavor is amplified!!

All winter long I've been thinking of growing herbs. I didn't know if I could do it with our living space, would be able to do it with my lack of time or should attempt it based off my past (not so successful) gardening experience.

But I decided that I shall not live in the world of "_oulds".

So I just plain did. I decided. I chose.

*Please don't laugh if you are an expert herb grower. I'm sure I've made mistakes in this learning process, but will be sure to make notes for next time. Any kind comments appreciated.

The "herbxperiment": I began with a little research. I'm not a deep researcher when it comes to things that are wrapped in a lot of common sense. I skimmed articles, Googled some questions, and went with my gut.

I learned about some of the easiest herbs to grow indoors.
The three I wanted to grow were on the list - phew.

 

 

I learned about the soil- it needs to be light with perlite for adequate drainage. Perlite looks like shredded Styrofoam. The soil also needs to be low in fertilizers or none at all. When I went to the store there was so much to choose from! The first bag I saw looked a little sketchy. It was only 94 cents and said there was compost in it and perlite so I thought it might be an ok choice, but it felt super heavy and dense. The next bag I picked up looked interesting. I started reading it and the garden center lady came up to me and said that was grass seed in my hand. Oops. What a newbie. The other two bags I looked at said they were great for herbs however one had a much higher amount of fertilizer than the other, so I went with the least amount of fertilizer.

 

Next I learned about the containers for my herbs. I read clay pots are good for warm climates and plastic are good for cooler climates. (maybe I got that backwards?) I needed pots with drainage holes and another container (to set the pots in)  filled with rocks to allow for even more drainage. I certainly understood from my research that drainage is super important when growing herbs.

The pots I bought had removable bottoms that when removed, exposed many drainage holes.

 Next I filled the pots with soil. Now there were a lot of things I chose to not look up, such as how full to fill them... so I guessed! I filled them about an inch from the top. Next I opened the seeds and placed them in each pot and covered them according to the package on the directions. One thing I may have made a big mistake on is that I used almost all the seeds in every pot...I didn't want to waste! Lets see if that effects my results. I can always prune if there are too many herbs growing right? Hopefully.



Basil

Oregano



Rosemary

 

After I covered them I placed all the pots in the container with rocks and labeled each pot. I got out my watering can and realized that was not going to work well as far as control of pouring. I should have bought a spray bottle. I decided to soak a paper towel and gently wring it out over the dirt until it was slightly moist.

 

 

 

I placed the herbs in full sun by the window. The window if southwest facing so they should have a good deal of sun as the days get longer.

 

It will take a couple weeks before anything green will start popping up, and several months before I can use the herbs. I will keep you posted on how it goes or should I say grows! This could be a complete fail too, but I will have to be patient.

 

Until next time...