The Re-vamped herb pot. Maybe it's not a total loss, but I'm not holding my breath!

The herb pot.  It was my garden nemesis!  Everything I planted was doing so well, the garden was exploding, I had tomatoes before anyone I knew, and the next thing I knew, my herb pot decided it was time to bring me back to reality.  Dead.  The two cilantro plants, and, the boxwood basil - - DEAD. 

I made two critical mistakes, which resulted in the murder of three perfectly good herb plants and the waste of about six dollars.  (Now I need to grow about 2 more pounds of tomatoes just to make up for it!  Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem.) 

My first critical mistake: I had put it against the house for ease of watering, since that's where the hose is, and it was in a huge, and darn heavy pot.  The first problem was location.  Not enough sun. Herbs need a lot of sun. 

So when it started dying, I moved it.  I dragged it across the concrete to the other side of the patio, where it would get full sun.  It was still pretty close to the kitchen, for ease of snipping at dinner time, but I thought it would perk back up.  That was my 2nd mistake.  It was getting hit by the sprinkler.  The sprinkler waters twice a day, and the dirt never got the chance to dry out in between waterings.  Herbs need to dry out a bit - -not all the way, but continuous saturation will kill the more tender ones, like oh, hmmm...  let me think... BASIL AND CILANTRO!!!

 



So I started out with this really cute little herb pot...

  You can see that my herb pot started out fine.  Up against the house, yes, but cute.  I had some nasturtiums that had grown from seed, that I put in the tipped pot.  I knew that I would have to deal with the fact that some of the herbs would get REALLY big and probably overrun the pot, but that's ok...  I was prepared. 

As it turned out, I didn't need to worry, because within a month, my herb pot looked like the photo below.  As I said before, just disregard that little bean plant you see growing in the middle pot in the "dead" photo... it was just temporary housing for that guy. 

It took me a little while to figure out what my mistakes were, it didn't come naturally.  I'm still a novice gardener after all. 





So over the weekend, I spent some time picking out some new herbs and planning a new spot.  I bought another rosemary, a couple of chives, two basil, two oregano and a lemongrass.  Now, I'm not crazy enough to think that all of those are going to fit in that pot, but it's all stuff I wanted, so I figured I would tough it out and find a place for it.  

I read that squash bugs do NOT like chives, so I needed to buy those anyway.  For now they are not in my main garden, but I will move them once I start seeing any hint of those yuckies.  I potted them separately. The lemongrass went into her own pot too, since she's an annual and will get pretty big on her own.  The basil, and the oregano went into the pot to replace the stuff that dies, and I moved the nasturtiums to a higher place since the Trampler likes to stick his big white nose into the pot and eat them.  He's weird, what can I say?  So after a little shopping, a little planning, and a little work - - and of course, a little getting dirty, this is my herb pot 2013 - - take II.


 We'll see how it goes.  It's in a sunny location, and has a friend next to it...  because friends make everything better.  :)  Here's the two of them together.  The 2nd pot has a salvia that my mom and I rescued from her house after her termite tenting, the 2nd rosemary that I bought this weekend, some nasturtiums that I re-potted because they were crowded, and one little sprig of ivy geranium that my mom and I also saved.  The salvia and the geranium were in the pot with Mom's gorgeous friendship plant, but they had a conflict of interest (friendship plant needing shade, salvia and geranium needing sun) so the salvia wasn't faring too well and needed to move or kick the bucket.  I don't take to well to my little leafy friends kicking the bucket, so I found them a new, sunny home. 

Hopefully everyone will be happy and healthy in their new homes.  I'll post an update as soon as I can tell a difference. 

Have a great Monday!
Green thumb out.