Green Ethics; Black Thumbs

Well, I was hoping to write a post about my kick-ass patio gardening skills. But alas, I don't apparently have any. If you want to read about some wicked-sweet gardening, read this. As for my skills, I guess I can tell you what not to do and what has kinda worked for me. Here it goes...

A few years ago, I was living in the middle of nowhere and decided to try window herbs. It was a 2 hour drive to town and even I don't love cilantro that much. I bought some basil and rosemary and kept them in the nursery pot on the windowsill. They did great! Lots of sun, none of the heat. I watered as they began to wilt. They supplied me and my roommate with plenty of yumminess. This is what you'd call "beginners luck" because it'd never be that simple again! After 6 months or so, the rosemary suddenly died and the basil had grown tall and shrub-like. I tossed them out before moving parks.

Over the next few years, I tried off and on with rosemary, cilantro, and basil. The basil always did well for a while, the rosemary lived a shorter life, and I became known as the cilantro-killer. In southern Arizona, I was killing cilantro like a serial killer while my neighbor complained about the massive quanitites of cilantro that grew WILD in her yard. One day I just said "fuck it, i give up. I'll just take hers." The rest of the year passed in great cilantro splendor. (i love cilantro in case you can't tell.)

Fast forward to this winter, when I announce to the family that I'm going to try patio gardening. After all, I live in Sun City, what better place to garden, right?!  hmmmm. For Christmas, my brother sets me up with lots of seeds and a window tray. See here for more on my Green Christmas. I began my new year with big garden plans. True to my DIY-style and recycle ethics, I even looked into reusing some items from around the house.

We all have tons of used toilet paper rolls laying about, right? No, just me... fine. I took 30 of these, cut slits in the bottoms and turned them into mini-planters. The idea being they would hold in moisture but decay over time, leaving me with amazing herbs. Six toilet tubes fit into a strawberry container and the lid would act as a greenhouse. Fill with soil and seeds, water, and wait.

Bonus: you get to eat lots of strawberries!

The strawberry container has slits too so have something to
catch the draining water!

Totally cute and totally didn't work. My seeds sprouted, leaving me with super-cute tiny green things. I planted cilantro, basil, sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli. They all sprouted however, when it came time to move them outdoors, they began to die. I took each of the tubes and planted them in larger planters. I guess the little roots just couldn't make it through the tubes or out the slits? i don't know what happened.

I also tried those peat seed starters that you can find at big box garden stores. Same story... lots of seedlings but they died after the peat holders dried out and became rock hard.

After taking a few weeks to mourn, I tried again. This time I said screw it to the seed starters and just planted them right into the pots. (Maybe seed starters are for sad cold people who live up north, not on the Mexican border where its currently 102 degrees.) This time around, things came up and did not die! Yay!!!!! I had enough spinach to sprinkle onto store-bought spinach for a salad. It made me feel good to contribute. The broccoli didn't make it. I learned that lettuce REALLY doesn't like the heat. The oregano and sage also didn't like the heat but they gave it a valiant effort. The shining star here was the Genovese Basil. It came up thick and happy, and has supplied me with basily-yumminess for a few months now.

RIP cilantro...

To add to the growing collection of things that may die on my patio, my dad bought me a Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree. I've been wanting one and he had one because of course, he is a gardening rockstar. So now I also have the lemon tree who we named "Midge" because my dad kept getting midgets and dwarves confused. She's had many blossoms, and currently one golf-ball sized lemon is hanging out. I'm hoping to have at least one yellow awesome lemon in the fall.

I had read that in the desert, you sometimes need to shade your gardens with a sheet or something that lets some light through but doesn't bake everything. So I found an old white bedsheet and nailed it the the lower half of the patio railing. This is the BEST THING EVER!
Here me now: it has lowered my electrical bill without lowering the amount of ambient light in the house, it keeps the direct sun off the garden, and it serves as a privacy barrier. I no longer have to see all of my neighbors that i'm blessed (sarcasm) with living next to.

I just planted some more basil, cilantro, and sage today. I'll try to baby them and hope they come up.
They are happily tucked away inside the air conditioned living room, with lots of indirect sun. However, they are sharing space with a cat that likes to attack my plants. We will see who wins....


Tip 1 - stay away from Lime Basil... Genovese Basil grows bigger, doesn't die as easily, and it tastes alot better.

Tip 2 - use it as it comes up. If you wait a long time to use the herbs, they may die and then you'll be a sad herbless human.

Tip 3 - check the dates on your seed packages. They aren't good forever. Poco Sobre Vida swears by online seed companies instead of big box stores. I haven't tried this yet because why buy the fancy mushrooms if you know you can't cook!

Tip 4 - if you live in an apartment, even if you don't garden, go get a patio covering sheet right now!

Here's my dad, back in the day, learning the secrets of gardening from his
own dad. The secret to any good garden is a big ole' bag of bullshit!

*This post is dedicated to my father, who passed NONE of his gardening genes down to me. Thanks dad.