A month ago, I bought a piece of ginger at Super G Mart in Greensboro because I wanted to infuse some simple syrup to make a cocktail. And I intentionally got one that looked like it was inclined to sprout. I used the ends that didn’t look sprout-y to make the ginger syrup and put the other bit in a pot of dirt on the patio.
When night time temps started dropping last week, I brought the pot in the house.
Lookit!!
My kitchen window is looking pretty naked, right now. It has gone from this:
To this:
It’s all crispy and I’m picking the leave off the stems to get them jarred up.
There is thyme and Italian oregano
And sage
Dried, ready to store basil and fresh basil ready to string up.
Using herbs I’ve dried through the winter makes me feel very competent.
Here is a link to my How To Dry Herbs post that I wrote for a friend.
My kitchen smells really good.
I’m going to tell a story on my friend. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this. So, I’m safe to not spoil a surprise.
Several years ago, my friend bought a condominium townhouse in Durham. It had a tiny little bit of dirt between the front of the building and the sidewalk that was maintained by a company paid for by the HOA. There were a couple of foundation plantings there. But, it wasn’t particularly ornamental.
We planted a ‘Don Juan’ climbing rose behind those and it flourished. And she got some cobalt blue flower pots to plant annuals to liven up the front porch.
One day, she asked me if I would come help her put a rosemary in one of the larger of the blue pots. So, I grabbed my trowel, a bag of dirt and some newspaper for the bottom of the pot and head over there.
When I got there, she said, “I bought this a few weeks ago and I don’t know what I need to do. Everything else has just been put in the pot without transplanting it. But, I think this needs more room than that.”
So, we pulled the pot out; I put a couple of layers of newspaper in over the drainage hole and reached for the rosemary to see how much soil I needed to put in the bottom.
And it wouldn’t lift up.
The pot had been there so long that the roots had grown through the drainage holes on THAT pot and firmly attached it to the ground. So, we left it there and it became a HUGE part of the foundation hedge.
She sold that condo 2 or 3 years ago to move into a rental house with her mother. Her mother died last year and she decided to buy another townhouse condominium, this time, in Apex.
I have bought her a rosemary plant as a housewarming gift. And it already had roots growing out of the drainage holes.
I was going to get a blue pot for it. But, I’m not sure she doesn’t still have one the correct size. So, I transplanted it into a nursery pot that I had in the shed for it to live in until I have a chance to give it to her. IF she has a pot the correct size, she can just drop it in. If she doesn’t, I will get one for it.
We moved the herb bed today and I am done.
We moved our raised beds from on-the-ground to 100 gallon watering troughs in 2020. We had been fighting trees-of-heaven out of those beds for as long as we’d had the beds (around a decade) and were clearly not winning the fight. So, beds with bottoms seemed like a good idea.
They work well. There are some rocks leftover from the defunct labyrinth in the bottom to help take up some space. And lovely soil on top that gets topped off with compost fairly frequently. Some is homegrown and some is purchased. The 2 of us don’t make enough vegetable waste to do it all. the troughs have a drainage hole near the bottom, so they don’t flood.
Three of the troughs are Chuck’s and 2 are mine. I have asparagus in one and herbs in the other. He uses the others for whatever vegetables suit us. Tomatoes, beans, greens, sometimes okra.
I was able to dry enough herbs last summer to avoid using any bought this Fall. It will be interesting to see if I make it all the way through.
I have had chives in a pot outside for over a decade. It went in the ground today. We grow cilantro and basil in pots, reseeding as the season requires. There is rosemary in the back flower bed. My trough has parsley, sage, thyme and 2 types of oregano. I expect I’ll plant a little dill again this summer since it doesn’t appear to be perennial here.
I am the Audience 