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!