A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Yes, the basil tree is still alive and well.  Yesterday I had to remove it from my hydroponic garden and put it into dirt.  I did not have a pot big enough so he ended up in a delivery container and even that is probably not big enough.  The root system on this plant is phenomenal it is probably 1" in diameter and as deep as the pot itself.  We have other plants who are doing great as well, the basil was blocking them and i did not even know that they were alive.  Yesterday I transplanted cilantro, mint, thyme, chives and a second basil plant.  I was unaware of the existence of the cilantro or mint so that was fun to find.  


What shall we do with all of these herbs???  I really do not know, with the warm weather coming we are hoping to get back to basics and focus on our old eating habits which were much healthier than what we are currently doing.  Regardless, they make the kitchen smell wonderful and I love having plants in the house, the next things we are working on growing is salad greens, it would be so much fun to just pick my salad greens from the "salad bar."  we shall see how that goes perhaps I should try for tomatoes too.....


Well here's to the salad bar I suppose.


~CM

Indoor Gardening

Well our indoor gardening system has exploded with greens!  We originally planted 2 types of basil, mint, chives, thyme, dill and parsley.  We swapped out the dill and parsley for some micro-greens and everything is growing quite well.  A couple of notes on this growing system. 
1. the front plants will grow faster than the back plants so we moved things around to have some equal opportunity growing. 
2. there are "nutrient tablets" that some with this, we tried to grow our plants without using them, but they would not grow with water and grow lights alone.  After speaking with some people who seemed to have some pretty decent plant knowledge it was decided that the tablets may not kill us and without them our little plants would not survive.


The system is actually quite easy to clean which I was not too sure about but for the micro greens I am not sure if enough would grow out of the two pods that we have set up now, I would not want to dedicate the whole planter to micro greens however so we will just have to see what works best. 


Over the weekend I used some of the basil to make a home made pasta sauce, when I cut the basil it smelled GREAT! Really appetizing and basily,  it was great in the sauce.  We are planning on making spring rolls and using the mint for that meal, the mint is kind of going everywhere at the moment, if it gets much bigger I will also make a nice mint iced tea with it.


All in all this growing system has been successful and a good purchase for us, I think that it will be great to have fresh herbs and greens throughout the winter, that is generally when I need them more for sauces and soups and they are either scarce or over priced.


Well until next time.
~A very herby CM

Urban Herbs

Well I got a new toy. It is called an AeroGarden, it is a dirtless herb and veggie growing system supposedly designed by NASA but who knows. Anyway, it's pretty cool, someday I hope to have a real garden in an outside space to call my own, but for now this will do. This grower comes with a little pump to circulate the water around and growlights which are on a timer. I have "planted" 7 different herbs; thyme, dill, mint, parsley, italian basil, chives and purple basil. The purple basil is poking through the fastest, I hope to be able to grow enough basil to make a delicious pesto. I am currently reading a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat" I am finding it surprisingly enjoyable. A tip I picked up from it is that I can make pesto and freeze it into ice cube tray size servings and one "cube" should serve 2. I like this idea and will be trying out storing it and other items I make in smaller quantities, it seems practical since it is only myself and Mr. CM.

Right now the little herbs are only about 5 days old. I think in another week or so I will start to see more progress, the mosquitoes really like the planting system, I think they like the warmth of the light, it's kind of nice though because they have not been bothering me lately :)

Ok more on the herbs next time.

~CM