As I mentioned a few days ago, my herb garden is back into full swing. My lavender, oregano, thyme, onion chives, tarragon, pineapple, orange, spear & chocolate mints all survived the winter and look fuckin’ awesome. (The chives and tarragon were the first ones to come back; I began seeing signs of new growth on them during a freak heatwave in February. The chocolate mint is the best surprise I got; we received it last year as a gift from Anarchist Boyfriend’s mom, but it didn’t seem to survive very well. I was planning on ditching it this year, but luckily, I completely slacked on that and the plant is now thriving.) I had to replace my basil (duh) and my rosemary (bawwww!); I also added sage and am attempting to grow dill from seed this year.

My first batch of basil wound up getting blight and the planter became infested with fungus gnats. Ick. Yesterday, I finally got the chance to scrub down the planter and replant my new basil. (I carefully threw out all the old basil plants and the soil, hosed the planter down and scrubbed it out with vinegar, so I hope I killed off any blight spores that may have been remaining.) I also swapped out the Miracle Gro moisture control soil for organic soil with better drainage and some worm castings (both purchased at my local co-op). Last year, I was loving the Miracle Gro soil; this year, after seeing that “moisture control” is code for “THIS SHIT WILL BE WATER LOGGED INTO NEXT YEAR,” I will never purchase that crap again.

Knowing what I know now, I would have lined all of my planters with gravel before filling them with soil when I set everything up last year, but I think the rosemary is the only thing that was really impacted by poor soil drainage. My quick fix was to put the rosemary in its own devoted planter and keep an eye on it this year, which seems to be working so far.

We have a Topsy Turvey that we never set up. I think we’ve missed the boat on doing that this year. I’m thinking about adding two more hanging planters to compensate for it. If I do, one of them is definitely getting some Thai chiles in it and the other will get… Who the hell knows? I know that giving in to impulse buys is not the most responsible thing in the world, but it’s how I tend to do my gardening. I have a rough plan and then keep my eyes open for seeds or plants that I’m interested in growing.

I’m way more confident and less in over my head than this time last year, which is good, because I want to have a vegetable/fruit garden once we have a big person house. I don’t want that plan to end with me sobbing on a patch of dirt and dead plant matter. heh.

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