Herb garden

First of all, it is spring, and there are beautiful tulips all over town. I am loving seeing everything in bloom and the warm weather is amazing.

Back to the topic of this post. I’ve never had much of a green thumb or even really cared that much about keeping a plant alive to begin with. When I moved into my dorm room, my mom bought me a plant, apparently to make it seem a little less like a freshman dorm room. It was dead a week later, and I let it sit on a shelf for the rest of the year before throwing it out just before I moved out.

But one of my favorite recipes is my mom’s tomato basil soup (I’ll post the recipe soon), which of course requires basil. Buying basil at the grocery store is not cheap, and I never used it all before it went bad, you’ll notice that that is a theme for me. So when I was in Georgia, I decided to grow some basil on my small porch. And it was amazing. It actually grew, and even when it looked dead, I could water it and it would come back to life. Nothing I did or didn’t do killed it.

Not long after I moved I set up my pot with basil on my deck and expected immediate growth. Since it was actually outside I figured the rain would water it for me, and I wouldn’t have to think about it. But my placement was a bit off because I actually had the pot underneath the roof overhang and gutters, so it got little to no water. And it was pretty much in the shade 90% of the time, which didn’t help the situation either. After an incident with the leaf blower, there was no chance of bringing this basil back to life.

This spring I have decided to take a new approach and bought a planter that would hang over the railing of the deck in the sun and be free to get some rain. 

Saturday is market day in my town (add that to the list of reasons why I love living here), and I headed over this weekend to pick up some herbs. 

I expanded my selection from just basil and bought some rosemary, thyme and parsley. Assuming I can keep them alive, I will have a selection of fresh herbs to add to my dishes.

Do you have a herb garden? And is there anything I should know about growing the rosemary, parsley or thyme?