'erbs

No, not that herb, cooking herbs. During my long layoff from work, we finally got to do something we promised we'd do in our own house - plant some herbs and veges. I like the idea of growing food; being able to pick it fresh, the satisfaction of labouring to plant and water and weed, getting some soil under the finger nails, a bit of sustainable inner glow.

There's not much room in our small back yard (or our small front yard for that matter), so we thought we'd start with a few pots under the back porch. A visit to Flower Power at Enfield, and about $100 later we had ourselves a foodie garden. One of those pots with the little scalloped holes in the sides for basil, lemon thyme, sage and oregano (all bought as seedlings, more on seeds and seedlings later). A second 'scalloped' pot for garlic and some parsley seeds. Another for two varieties of strawberries. Some coriander. And because my beloved had an urge for crumble, some rhubarb.

Nearly two months later, all the herbs except for the coriander are going well, the rhubarb is growing and the strawberries have flowered. Coriander apparently tends to go to seed in Sydney's climate, ours has done this, sending out weird thin shoots that look nothing like coriander leaves. And garlic is hard to grow, ours seems to have died. Oh well.

At the same time I also planted a whole bunch of seeds from packets given to us by my mother-in-law. Unfortunately most of these had expired in the early 90s, so I've seen nary a shoot so far. The only ones I hold out hope for are the waratah seeds which can apparently take up to three months to germinate. However the less-expired (mid 2000s) flower seeds I planted directly in the garden seem to be sprouting. Whew.

So seedlings are probably the way to go for quick and easiest results. Or don't use expired seed packets.