You Grow Girl™

The herb pool has been set up since Monday and it's looking great. This morning I sat next to it and rubbed all the leaves to release their smells. Then I took photos of each plant. I like to document their growth because it never ceases to amaze me how small they are at first and how big they grow in a short amount of time.

So far I am most into the sacred basil. It is amazing. It's not my favourite as far as taste goes but the flowers have the sweetest, most delicious smell imaginable. If you ever come across this plant grab one. I can't wait until they get huge. I think I'll let them produce a lot of flowers that I can harvest for bouquets rather than worry about having lots of foliage to harvest for eating. I have a zillion other basil varieties to choose from but none have flowers like these. For foliage I'd have to vote African blue basil number one. The taste is sharp but the leaves are green with a deep purplish blue running through the veins.

The sage have been in full bloom for a few days now but it has been so grey here I didn't want to take any photos until the sun came out (which it did today). The flowers are purple and remind me of tiny snap dragons in that they look like little mouths with teeth that could bite! I made a little bouquet of sage, kale and chive flowers for my desk.

Later I went downstairs and took photos of the downstairs garden. Lots of flowers are in bloom right now and the plume poppies are out of control yet again.

Yesterday Beate came for a visit and she gave me a few veggies. She's been hardening off her veggie seedlings in her car because last year they were eaten by squirrels and it was a disaster. I ended up with two lemon boy tomatoes (I'm giving one away) and two jalepeno peppers (I'm giving one away). I sent her home with two tiny ground cherry seedlings. This morning I planted the lemon boy tomato and the sunrise III tomato (determinate cherry) that I bought last weekend. I was disappointed to discover aphids on the jalepeno seedlings but then I soon discovered that I had aphids on some of my succulents and on my red currants. Luckily there were plenty of ladybugs on the job so I cut off the infested leaves and left it at that. I just crushed the ones on the pepper plants.