Herbing

Everyone is growing their own herbs these days, so I figured why not? I was originally inspired by Bea Johnson of the Zero Waste Home, who has an entire herb / plant covered wall.  I wonder how she waters this without getting water everywhere.

Bea's Giant Plant Wall:

Also, two happy children playing scrabble.

As a next step, I grabbed a friend with a car (because I can't carry four plants on my own), and we headed to a nursery in Brooklyn, and then to Ikea.  I don't like how plant stores are called nurseries, it seems like egregiously false advertising to me.  Nurseries are where babies are, and where my endorphines are off the carts.  I don't get the same emotional high from plants.

We grabbed basil, rosemary, chives, and italian flat leaf parsley, and got back in the car.  I was told to water them every two days.  I wonder how long it will take me to forget to do that for two weeks and then notice.

Ikea was in the midst of redoing the accessories departments; they barely had what I needed -- those little cups that hang on bars.  I scored some 'returned' inventory that was opened, ripped up, but still had all the parts.

And then came home and had Aaron install it.

We have this little nook next to the stove, great light in there, perfect for herbs.
I had aspirations of creating an entire wall of them, then I learned I had to water each one individually over the sink, otherwise water gets on the floor.  Then three was enough.

Oh my little happy campers.

Looking good! Ikea dosen't have these on their website, but we got them in this department.

I'm afraid to actually eat them because they look so nice.

We had to put the basil on the counter, because we only had three pots (counting error at Ikea), and basil can't take sunlight like the other plants.

So far, we've used the rosemary, by putting it in olive oil and infusing my olive oil (yum).  And using it one night when we threw an engagement party, and served a drink that required rosemary.

And we used the basil (really, all of it) to make a fresh pesto.

Aaron whipping up a zero waste lunch!

Stage left, fresh pesto and our cheese jar.  Yum.

All in all, we're happy with the herbs.  It has taken the number of things we need to water from 1 to 5, which is an agressive uptick, but it isn't as hard as having one kid, then having five kids.

Do you have fresh herbs? Any tips for caring for them?