Pictures of the the little herb garden from last summer.
This little crew of pots was transferred into the kitchen for the winter and back to the deck last weekend. We had a few fatalities over the winter: the hot pepper plants, the dill, and the basil. But the sage, mint, rosemary, oregano, parsley, and chives are still going strong.
One note on the parsley is that it grew increasingly covered with aphids in the kitchen. I tried to get rid of them by spraying the plant with vinegar (which burned the leaves!) and then some diluted castile soap. No luck. The aphids came right back. Interestingly, they didn't infect any of the other plants. A friend of mine suggested buying some ladybugs, but the smallest quantities available for purchase would give me something like 20,000 ladybugs. Probably not the best thing to introduce to my little potted eco-system. Well, oddly enough, as soon as I put the parsley outside, the aphid problem went away. So many thanks to all the little buggies, whoever you are, that have help clean up my little friend!
Oh, and one side note on the herb garden from last year: A tomato surprise! I fertilized my pots with compost that was not quite finished composting. And the result was a tomato plant that sprouted up! I was so excited. Too bad it only yeilded one yucky, mealy, flavorless tomato. Booo. But at least it was pretty, right?
What inspired this post? It's almost CSA time again! Red Wiggler has been busy planting goodies for this year. Goodies are just around the corner...
This little crew of pots was transferred into the kitchen for the winter and back to the deck last weekend. We had a few fatalities over the winter: the hot pepper plants, the dill, and the basil. But the sage, mint, rosemary, oregano, parsley, and chives are still going strong.
One note on the parsley is that it grew increasingly covered with aphids in the kitchen. I tried to get rid of them by spraying the plant with vinegar (which burned the leaves!) and then some diluted castile soap. No luck. The aphids came right back. Interestingly, they didn't infect any of the other plants. A friend of mine suggested buying some ladybugs, but the smallest quantities available for purchase would give me something like 20,000 ladybugs. Probably not the best thing to introduce to my little potted eco-system. Well, oddly enough, as soon as I put the parsley outside, the aphid problem went away. So many thanks to all the little buggies, whoever you are, that have help clean up my little friend!
Oh, and one side note on the herb garden from last year: A tomato surprise! I fertilized my pots with compost that was not quite finished composting. And the result was a tomato plant that sprouted up! I was so excited. Too bad it only yeilded one yucky, mealy, flavorless tomato. Booo. But at least it was pretty, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment