Planting an idea

I had a dirty dream last night. In my dream I was kneeling in a garden with my hands plunged into an open bag of potting mix, scooping out handfuls of dark, loamy soil to pat around the seedlings I'd just planted in a garden bed in front of me.

oxo

Yep, it's nearly spring and all this unseasonably warm weather has inspired me to start thinking about replanting my herb garden, or rather the various pots and planters that pass for a herb garden when you only have a balcony to work with.

I have always loved the idea of being able to wander outside, kitchen scissors in hand, to snip a handful of tarragon, parsley and chives for a Fines herbs omelette, or a few leaves of dark, aromatic basil for a Caprese Salad. Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly idealistic mood, I fantasise about having a vegie patch with an ever-changing array of seasonal vegies to plan meals around, fruit trees and maybe a few chickens (let's call them butter, tandoori and Portuguese) for eggs. Realising last spring that this was unlikely to happen anytime soon, I decided to put plan B into action.

Mentally taking stock of the herbs I use most often in my everyday cooking while visiting a local garden centre, I quickly selected pots of sage, mint, continental parsley, coriander, rosemary and basil, along with chives, which I actually don't use that often because I always end up throwing away half the bunch and I don't like wasting food. Some window box style planters, wire window box "hangers" and some potting mix recommended for vegie gardens rounded out my purchases. How hard could this growing herbs business be?

A year on, the rosemary is hanging in there, a little stunted but defiantly alive. The sage lasted until a couple of months ago when I decided to put the three wizened leaves that were left out of their misery. Nothing else made it past the two-month mark.

I actually don't know enough about growing herbs to know if this is normal or not but comments have been made in the past about my extraordinarily black thumbs (you should see my poor gardenia), so I wouldn't be surprised if someone else would have had a flourishing herb garden to this day.

In my defence my west-facing balcony does get very hot in the afternoons (I definitely wilt if I have to go out there between 3 and 6pm) but I think I also made a beginner's mistake in choosing the pretty window box planters rather than large pots with plenty of room for the roots to spread. This year I'm retiring the planters in favour of the biggest pots I can lug home from the garden centre.

The herbs on this year's shopping list are continental parsley, coriander, sage, basil and thyme. Wish me luck!