Herb Garden Pt. 1

September 2, 2019

If you remember my 2018 Summer Bucket List, one of my goals was to start an herb garden... and I did! Because our townhouse doesn't have a back yard, I decided to try a little wall pocket that a great friend had gifted me and it was perfect for a petite garden.



Our little herb garden was sweet and humble, boasting a collection of 7 herbs and yielded until the last cold snap of Spring 2019 (late April). Though a few of our herbs held out (they were pretty scraggly and crunchy by that point) I decided that an herb garden wasn't as scary or difficult as I originally anticipated and therefore I was ready to expand on our collection. I purchased a new set of planter wall pockets and waited for the gardening bug to bite me.


Here's what everything looked like when I brought it home. :)

 Little did I know that eventually I would double our humble garden of 7 herbs to 14, and add 4 leafy greens to the mix because I happened to be strolling Home Depot on a day where herbs were 5 for 10 bucks. I guess it's safe to say that I got a little carried away. 



But don't worry, it gets a little more ridiculous.

Brandon is one of Amazon's most valuable customers. Like on the real, we had Alexa at least a good year before it was ever available to the public, and Brandon's purchased pretty much everything they've ever invented. We also have 6 Alexa devices in our home, which means that we're super careful about any potential Pinky-and-the-Brain-type conversations we engage in while cooking dinner or getting ready for bed. So it was only natural that Brandon would be a huge fan of the Amazon Treasure Truck.

If you're not familiar with the concept, Amazon offers great time-restricted offers on random products (usually based on the season) where you can reserve and pick them up at a particular location where the Treasure Truck is parked. Our truck is always parked at the Cumberland Mall, and we've gotten a Nintendo console, a live Christmas wreath, roses and chocolates for Valentine's Day, a box of live succulents (oddly enough around my birthday), and even a pack of prime steaks and beef patties for Summertime. Anyhoo... this past spring the Treasure Truck was offering an Aerogarden. Brandon purchased it without telling me, and while I cringed at the idea of allowing an appliance to live on my kitchen countertop (yeah, no toaster, no coffee machine, and no blender reside on Casa Cook's counters) I held my reservation until I could see what the little garden system could do.

Brandon designated a little corner next to the pantry and got everything set up. To be honest, we were both quite skeptical of what the Aerogarden claimed to yield, but boy were we in for a surprise! This little baby pumped out more herbs than we realistically knew what to do with.



And this photo was taken after these herbs had been trimmed and harvested several times!

Long story short, I couldn't cook enough meals to utilize all the herbs we were producing. In fact they were growing so much that they were touching the LED lights and starting to scorch. Thankfully we know people who love cooking with herbs, so we started gifting them to our friends and co-workers which kept the herbs from going to waste. Then we thought, "You know what? Why not put transplant these herbs outside and try growing something we can eat on the regular - like lettuces!" So I purchased another wall pocket planter (the burlap planter gift from the year before had taken a nice beating, plus we needed more room). 




Brandon bought a new set of lettuce pods for the Aerogarden and here they are with two weeks of growth.



Did I mention that I also needed to fill the new pockets so I purchased a few more herbs to round out our garden - I know... it's crazy. This time I added more basil because a good deal of the basil we grew in the Aerogarden did not survive the transplant. I also added lavender and tarragon. Now the wall pockets are looking good and we're excited to see how everything will flourish.

On "Herb Garden Pt. 2" I'll dive into what herbs we're growing specifically, our herb garden essentials, tips and tricks we've learned along the way, and even some of my favorite ways to use what we've grown. Stay tuned!

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