Tuesday Tip: Grow Your Own Herbs

I love using fresh herbs for cooking.  However, the grocery store REALLY loves fresh herbs (for the most part) and buying them on a weekly basis can get expensive fast.  The solution?  Grow your favorite herbs yourself!  Most require little care--just an occassional watering and full sun.  Don't make excuses about not having enough room!!!  I have an 8 foot by 4 foot balcony that I grow chives, parsley, cilantro, basil, oregano, nasturiums, hot peppers, wheat grass, and jello.  I'll get to the jello in a minute.

{I prefer to start everything from seeds because A) it's cheaper and B) I love to watch things grow!}

My cats love to be on the balcony too.  I call it the Jungle because it will get that way by the end of June.  They just love to lay out there, eat my chives, and bird watch.  Just FYI--cats should NOT eat chives, onions or garlic because it is toxic to them.  However, my oldest, Loki, loves to eat the chives and will demolish them in 10 seconds flat if you don't watch him closely...  DARN CAT!

Anyway...  On to the tour!

{Growing some pansies this year!  Pansies are one of the few edible flowers and can be used as garnish for dishes}

{See how I have to have a wheat grass decoy in front of my chives?  Those chives are regrowing from last year's seeds!  I am so excited!}

{Ari--my second cat and the most scaredy cat EVER!  We have had him almost 4 years, and he still doesn't like our sudden moves, loud noises, picking him up, or coming at him in any way....  If you sit or lay down, he is all over you like white on rice!}

{Ziffi--our youngest and most adventurous cat.  She figured out how to get onto the bathroom shelf and top closet shelf...  Both not easy places to reach!  She constantly has a mischievous look on her face...}

{Cilantro growing!}

{Loki--our oldest, chive-eating monster}

{I believe these are violas--whatever they are is beautiful!}

{Parsley coming up}

Okay--the jello story.  The other side of the planter with parsley in it, I planted some 'seeds'.  Nothing was coming up, and I was starting to get worried.  After a torrential rain last week, I figured that something would surely pop up because everything else was beginning (the peppers, basil, oregano, and nasturiums were too tiny to photograph).  I went over to check and had an inch thick of this jelly-like substance.  Being me, I poked it, touched it, and smelled it.  Nothing.  It looked like unflavored gelatin, and I believe that it was.  Since I got the seeds from my mom, I made fun of her about getting old and such.  Then she said, "I had the same thing happen to me!"  So either this was a Monday morning/Friday afternoon job or my mom is getting old, blind, and senile.  (LOVE YOU MOM YOU ARE THE BEST)

I also have a bird feeder (one of those suet cake ones) for the cats to bird watch.  They've run into the sliding glass door more than once, and it has not decreased it's entertainment value!  Mwahahahahaha

So see!  You CAN grow herbs and plants that you like in as little space as I am.  Even if you only like parsley, then grow parsley in a pot on your windowsill.  And if it produces more than you can use, then preserve them.

Do you grow herbs in your space?  If so, what do you grow?

Pin It