herbs

So I’ve developed an increasing fascination over the past couple of years with a variety of hobbies that can be summed up under the header of ‘growing things’.  Specifically things that I can eat!  (Flowers are nice, but… boring.)  Starting with microbes and yeast cultures for bread making, brewing and other fermentations, and this year I’m trying to ‘branch out’ (haha) to some more complicated life forms.  At the moment I have some tomato seedlings and hyssop going (why hyssop?  As a brewing herb, of course!)  Rosemary is planted, but I haven’t got it warm enough to sprout yet.  Coriander and chamomile are still waiting to be planted.

I don’t have much of a green thumb and am not too confident that I won’t kill these guys, but I’m trying!  They’ve been growing indoors under flourescent lights, but I’m anxious to get them a little more light and warmth so I can hopefully get them planted before I go away next month (hopefully I can find someone to water them for me!  We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)  So I did a little research and decided it would be good to get them outside under a miniature greenhouse/cloche system.  It’s surprising how often you can make what you need from what you already have!  Tea trays make excellent water reservoirs, and my clear plastic recycling bin will hopefully serve as a greenhouse.  Here’s my setup:

I think it is still too cool to leave them out overnight, hopefully I won’t forget to bring them inside!  I will be ecstatic if I manage to get homegrown tomatoes this year, and herbs for specialty mead and/or gruit.  Wish me luck!