Recently I have been trying to grow my own culinary herbs. Two and a half months ago, or so, I bought large potted plants of lemon balm, oregano, lemon thyme, tarragon, chocolate mint, sweet mint, sage, parsley and three types of basil (Genovese, African Blue, and Cinnamon). What a bounty I thought, I'm going to be overflowing with herbs in two and a half months time, yippee. Herbs are easy to grow, right?
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| Outdoor Italian Oregano plant, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A. Lockey |
My oregano and lemon thyme loved their new home and tripled in size. The oregano was outside and the lemon thyme was inside along with my parsley plant. They seemed to prefer air conditioning to tropical heat.
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| Sweet Mint alongside Chocolate Mint plant, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
It took a little experimentation to figure out that my mint plants liked lots of light and lots of water. Once I found the right location they thrived and doubled inside. That was until I repotted the chocolate mint and it didn't take to its new growing environment. It's still here but struggling.
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| Tarragon plants, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
I also discovered that my tarragon was hungry and thirsty. So I gave it some worm castings and put it in a tray of water. It thanked me by doubling in size.
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| Purple African Blue Basil flowers, South Florida, Copyright 202 by Helen A Lockey |
My African Blue basil went wild with purple flower heads that the local bees adored, but it didn't produce very many edible leaves.
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| Rosemary plant, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
My rosemary died from overwatering, so I had to brave the elements to get a new one. I'm immune compromised, so this was a scary shopping trip for me. I put the new plant in a sunny, dry location and gave it some fertilizer. It's doing wonderfully.
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| Cinnamon Basil, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A. Lockey |
My cinnamon basil really liked its location on top of my rain barrel, especially after I gave it some fertilizer. But then half of it started dying. I repotted and split it into two haves to revive at least one. One survived and the other died. Unfortunately whatever affected the first plant started affecting the second plant and it soon started dying. I cut off the dead bits, moved it to a sunny spot and crossed my fingers. As of this writing, it is still alive.
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| Chef's Trio Basil pot, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
My Genovese basil culinary trio pot, three different types including a purple, struggled from the beginning. And the purple culinary basil didn't make it much past repotting. The other two are hanging on, a bit tentatively, but still hanging on.
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| Garden Sage, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
My big beautiful sage that survived replanting with flying colors started to die about two weeks ago. I thought it was because I brought it into the house, so I took it outside into the sun where it got sunburnt. So I moved it to the shade where it did well until a heavy rain that over-soaked the dirt . Then I moved it to a slightly shaded sunny area but that didn’t help. It died last week.
I decided to replace my sage plant by buying one online but none were available. In fact none were available at stores in the real world. I thought I could start another from seed but found out that sage plants take a very long time to grow, the plant I had was probably around three years old.
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| Lemon Balm, South Florida, Copyright 2020 by Helen A Lockey |
On a happy note, my lemon balm has not only thrived, it has started producing hundreds of small leaves and stems and is starting to look like a bush now. It really likes sunlight and so is sitting in the sunniest part of my back patio.
Bottom line, herb plants are easy to grow if you can get safely out of your house to buy new ones.
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