Miscellania, &Co.

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Last night was an excellent night out - some of the guys in one of the World of Warcraft guilds we play with came over from the UK, and we pubbed and ate in a fantastic Chinese in Little Mary Street, and went on to Fibbers.

Today we broke out the barbecue, because it was nice and sunny, and cooked outside. It got chilly afterward, but the food worked well. I don’t know why gammon steaks are not more popular - they’re like giant rashers, and they’re really good when grilled. And being able to cook with herbs that I picked and dried last year was also excellent - rosemary, in this case.

I’ve planted some more herbs this year - last year’s vegetables sort-of worked, but weren’t really suitable. I now have rocket coming up rather quickly, and also parsely, dill, and thyme (at least I think it was thyme - I’m not 100% sure now). There’ll be more rocket going in soon, as I don’t expect the current crop to survive long - it’s one of the few leaf vegetables I can’t get enough of.

I’d like to try basil as well, and I have the seeds for it, but it’s a more difficult beast to grow than the rest - needs planting indoors, and then putting out, which I’m not really all that well set up for. I have a vague notion of hanging seed trays in the kitchen window, where they’d get a bit of light and still be out of feline reach. I’m not sure it’s very practical, though.

Comments

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I've always found basil to be rather easy to grow. Sometimes I grow it from seed, sometimes I buy a variety of basil plants already started. This year I started Thai basil indoors. The ordinary basil will just get planted right in the garden, probably sometime this week after the current cold snap is over. I'd like some other varieties, but since I don't have an endless amount of garden to grow them in, I'll just pick up a few plants already started and grow them in pots.

If you want to start yours indoors, you don't actually need to use seed trays. You can start a bunch of seeds in a single relatively wide and shallow pot. If you do it that way, you just have to be sure to separate and transplant them before the roots get too intertwined.

[caturah.livejournal.com]

Conversely, I'm having hell's own time trying to get my basil to grow. I've bought pre-grown plants, and the first plant for the few months was fine (fresh basil on pasta, nom!), but it contracted a fungal infection from god knows where, and it slowly killed it off. The second plant contracted the safe infection. I managed to treat that one successfully with tea tree, though it has now gotten a very bad case of green-fly and possibly something else, which again is rendering it barely healthy, never mind not at all fit for consumption.
Now, note that no other plant in the household or garden is suffering from any of these maladies, and my father is one of the most green-thumbed people I know so.. I have no idea what if anything I'm doing wrong.