A thyme story

Is it hard to grow thyme, you may ask.  Ha!  It all depends.

Look at the picture.  Looks glorious, doesn't it?  As healthy as it can be, green, fragrant twigs everywhere (oh gods, the smell!  Grow it, if only to be able to smell it!).  Can you believe, though, that what you see is only a single plant? 

I must have sown 20 or 30 seeds.  This single plant is all that survived. 

Good news is that it looks like this single plant is enough.

The seeds are tiny.  Smaller than a pinhead.  Seriously, you need a magnifying glass to see them (ok, maybe that wasn't so serious after all.  But they ARE tiny).  This may not be the case with all the thyme seeds of this world, but mine sprouted like crazy.  Rather quick, too, after 3 or 4 days from sowing I already had a green meadow in my pot. 

Then the Apocalypse came.  Or, to be precise, watering.  Small thyme plants are extremely fragile.  A drop of water falling from a high will kill them.  No joke here, dead, kaputt, thyme was no more.  I killed my first two meadows this way, and I do learn from my own mistakes - I tried to be careful once I recognised the problem, but still - the thyme was dead.  Hm. 

In the end, I gave up.  I stopped being so careful with watering, only threw a splash of water in the pot's direction once in a blue Moon...  Oh miracle of miracles, one single green shoot survived this harsh treatment and grew up to be the healthy green shrub you can see above. 

I already started pinching twigs here and there to add some thyminess to my cooking.  Once it grows even bigger, I'll probably savage it to make thyme pesto, but for now I'm happy with a few leaves in a salad or soup. 

You know what's the best bit?  Thyme is a perennial, so I will be able to pinch it again and again and again...  And next year too, and a year after that...

Go ahead and plant your own.  I dare you!

Splash of colour

Pretty neat, heh?

I wasn't much for planting flowers when I started playing gardener, but since I happened to have few packets of seeds, I sowed them anyway.  How glad I am now I did!  This orange marigold never fails to cheer me up, even on the grayest day it's still vivid orange. 

You don't even need many plants, there's one pot with four plants on my balcony and still it makes all the difference. 

One extra benefit is the fact, that marigolds are extra hardy and irresponsible gardener will find it quite difficult to kill them off :)

Tomato horror story

As promised.

Just looked at the picture - quite a difference, yes?

Funnily enough, the plant still manages to sustain growing fruit (3 altogether), but there are hardly any leaves left now and the rest of the flowers withered away. 

Now - WHY THE HELL IS THAT???

I have few suspicions, and if you happen to be a tomato expert and know which one is the most likely, please let me know.

1. Disease - the leaves got all funny before they died.  Sort of shrivelled.  Or is it some nutrient deficiency?

2. Small container.  Not enough space for the roots - could it literally kill the plant?

3. Or did it simply dry up?  I was away for one week some time ago, and the plant looked pretty miserable after my return.  I got someone to water it in my absence but... well... people are busy these days.  But nearly a month of regular care passed since and the tomato didn't recover, just the opposite.

Now it's racing the time to see if tomatoes will ripen before the plant dies :)

Brag before you fall

Hereby I'm going to take my own advice and dedicate this post solely to boasting how beatiful my tomato plant got before things turned bad. 

If you prefer horror stories to happy-ever-after, wait for the next post.  Otherwise - just look at this beauty!  It might be excessive gardener's pride, but I'm stunned by how pretty tomato flowers actually are.  I might even consider making them a part of a goddamn bouquet - if not for the yummy tomatoes I'd be losing this way.

Just to remind you - I'm being rather optimistic and irresponsible and my tomato plants are still growing in plastic bottles, cut in half.  I'm pretty sure they would love to have a bit more space.  They're threatening to go on strike...  I can hardly see any soil for the roots anymore.

Up to a certain point, it was working allright.  The plant grew and grew, green and cheerful, and finally it became covered with flowers.  My oh my, if all the flowers managed to turn into tomatoes, I would be a tomato potentate!  They were unbelievably numerous. 

Not too many bees in my place, so, like a good girl, I summoned my faithful make up brush and embarked on a tomato-shagging quest each morning.  Guess what?  Some of the flowers even turned into actual tiny tomatoes. 

Now, that's where my story turns into horror.  Or at least a good, heart-breaking drama.  If you want to know what happened (and learn to avoid my mistakes), come back tomorrow(ish).

Is it hard to grow parsley?

Aaaaaa, Blogger is being funny again and I can't for the life of me post the picture of lively parsley I've had planned for today.

Bugger.

Well, you have to take me on my word - my parsley is growing like insane. Actually, it is one of the few plants in my potted garden that don't seem to mind small size of their container. It's lovely and green and... somehow the word 'fluffy' comes to my mind, although I might be taking this a bit too far :)

The trick is I've heard somewhere that parsley tends to be rather difficult to grow successfully. Hmm.

Do you have an opinion? Or any experience with leafy parsleys? Are they devils or angels to have on your window sill? Let me know!