grow fresh herbs

When I visited Nonna in Tassie she gave me some plants to bring back with me, among them some strawberries. They were squashed into a tiny little pot (you can kind of see it bottom right) and I noticed over the last week that something else was starting to grow out the side. I realised they were tomatoes and have since rehoused them in a larger pot!

Even though I now have a very small amount of balcony space I have managed to fit a large number of herbs on it. Nonna helped me to add to my collection on my recent trip to Tassie. I’m currently growing: nasturtiums, dill, lemon-scented geranium, mint, aloe vera, salad burnet, lemon balm, lemongrass, green lavender, peppermint, yarrow, feverfew, oregano, korean mint, cape gooseberry and a herb and salad mix. I am now wondering how much more I can squeeze out there!

Edit: I forgot, there are also some strawberries.

These are the herbs I have in the right-hand corner of the balcony. I have thyme (grown from seed), stevia, rosemary and apple mint at the back.

I had to streamline my collection as we’ve moved into a one-bedroom apartment with a small balcony. I re-potted a few things to make them fit. At the moment I’ve got rosemary, stevia, thyme, yarrow, cape gooseberry, feverfew, Vietnamese mint, apple mint, mint, lemon-scented geranium and lemon balm.

When nonnacookbooker visited awhile back she really helped my boost my collection, bringing with her yarrow, feverfew, lemon balm, cape goosberry, dill and pineapple sage among others. My aunt potted up a lemon scented geranium for me, which is also doing well. I bought a korean mint, at a market, which I planted up in an old olive oil tin (which nonnacookbooker also brought with her!). I have also transplanted my seedlings – oregano, perilla, thyme, camomile and tarragon. For some reason I didn’t have much success with the basil. The perilla is doing the best and the leaves are a really good size now (you can see a little bit of it in the bottom pot). You can see some of my pots in the photo above – I don’t have a lot of outdoor space, but am being creative with what I do have!

I tried my hand at growing some herbs from seed. I bought some module trays and planted tarragon, basil, camomile, oregano, thyme and shiso. If you look closely in the picture you can see that the tarragon has already started to shoot up! Apparently the hardest part of growing herbs from seed is transplanting them successfully so it will interesting to see how that goes. Regardless, there is something very rewarding about seeing the transformation from seed to plant.

I planted up four more kinds of herbs – rosemary, lemon verbena, basil and mint. I’m having problems with some kind of pest – a tiny white moth – so need to figure out what to do about that.
I borrowed out some gardening magazines from the library and now have all sorts of things I want to try out. I can see this getting very addictive!

I bought a stevia plant which I potted up today. So far I have managed not to kill it and it’s in a self-watering pot so I have great hopes of keeping it alive.
I’m also really excited as I found some red perilla seeds this week. I used it a lot in Japan but you can’t buy it over here so it’s great I’ll be able to grow my own.

use fresh herbs to cook, to add flavour to healthy foods.

use fresh herbs to cook, to add flavour to healthy foods.