Thursday, June 18, 2009

Herbidaceous

I mentioned a while back that my brother had bought me an aquaculture unit and I promised to let you know how it was going and I haven't. Sorry about that.

I'm growing the set of herbs that come with the kit.

  • Chives sprouted almost immediately but have been generally sorry for themselves. Not a success.
  • Parsley germinated fitfully and eventually, as parsley does. It's OK but unspectacular.
  • An early spectacular success was the dill. It loves the conditions but is a victim of its own success - dill wants to be a tall plant and my hallway is scented by its burning its leaves on the lightbulbs. The only remedy is to keep chopping and eating (it's a hard life). I like dill with potatoes, particularly with creamy mashed potatoes accompanying a decent sausage.
  • Thyme was a slow starter but does splendidly. This is a major success and I only wish I did enough cooking with meat to do it justice. It does well with a bit of mousetrap to make a decent cheese on toast.
  • Mint was another slow starter. I would have thought the conditions would have suited it to a T but it's frankly disappointing. Perhaps it's the variety. Perhaps it's the environment. Perhaps I've been spoilt rotten by the tub of black mint I've got out in the garden.
  • Basil took its own sweet time a-coming but was worth the wait. The pack included two varieties: an obvious Genovese and a probable Black Opal, which tends to lose its colour a bit under these conditions.

So all in all it's a pretty good show. Perhaps the best thing about it is that I can pick a sprig of something to chew in passing. Pretty good.

2 comments:

Major D'Omo said...

I suspect the mint couldn't cope with all that richness and really wanted a crap bit of soil out the back so that it could get on with its plans to invade Manchester

Major D'Omo said...

I can tell you my eastern mint colonies are now carrying out one of Marshall Zhukov's classic pincer manoeuvres and will be linking with mint from the western beds somewhere beside the maple tree in front of the shed.