A Craftsy Day In the Life Of Jina: Herb Gardening with a Black Thumb

Herb Gardening

Update: Spring 2019

Still too early to tell what has survived this long cold winter.

After a hard winter

One of the chive plants survived the winter

I actually started this project two springs ago and didn't get very far as nothing came up. I don't know if I just started the seeds too late and they got a little too toasty or what.


Herb Garden Before

So this is what it looked like before any work was started on it.


After Work Was Started

Even though it seems like I have a black thumb at times, I still wanted to persist because digging around in the dirt and around plants is just fun, (usually) and it's healing. So hubby went and got some horse manure from a co-worker and we spread a layer of that on top of the garden last fall. When spring came I spaded it back into the dirt. Really made the worms happy. Note, the manure came from pasture horses and not from a barn. Taking manure from a barn is risky as there is the chance of mouse droppings being in the manure as well. Which that being in a source of edibles, just yuck! The manure did not fully decompose over the winter so we didn't harvest any herbs last season. It is possible it will sit for another full season as well, depending on what it looks like come spring.


Spring 2018 Planting

After not having very good luck with seeds coming up in peat pots the previous spring I found out about Jiffy peat pellets and this is what they looked like.


2-3 Weeks Old Seedlings in Jiffy Peat Pellets


Burpee's Peat Planter

This next spring I'm hoping we'll have a double-decker grow light.

August 2018

Side View August 2018


Another Side View August 2018

Purple Pansy

My pansies did really well until part of our fence blew down and the deer found them. They must be quite tasty to deer. They ate nothing else planted in that bed. So most herbs are not attractive to deer.