Indoor herbs pt. 2

Hello and welcome back, I hope everyone in the northern hemisphere is getting excited and looking forward to spring, and I hope that everyone in the southern hemisphere has had a productive summer and is looking forward to the change of seasons. Since my last post, I have been excitedly watching my pots of soil for progress with the same excitement as a kid waiting to open presents on Christmas morning. And finally, 8 days after planting the seeds I woke up to this beautiful little guy pushing up through the surface.

Now before I get carried away talking about how my plants are going I need to give a quick update on my personal life. Mainly I have moved to a new place, and I am now sharing with a brilliant guy and a good friend of mine. There were several factors as to why I decided to move but mostly it came down to the cost of living. The upside is the new place is cheaper than my last one, the neighbourhood is nicer and I can walk to work. The best part of the whole move though is that the new place has a small balcony and I have permission to put pots on it.

Needless to say, the indoor plants I started at my old place now happily sit on it, I am happy they are outside now as the breeze that circulates around them helps to dry the soil which in turn helps prevent mould and strengthens the plant.

 As for how they are progressing, they are doing great, the seeds I have in the recycled yoghurt pots are not growing as fast as the ones in the traditional plastic pots but that is because two out of the three have lettuce planted into them. And the lettuce takes a little longer to germinate than the herbs. The third yoghurt pot contains parsley and it is coming along just as well.  

If I was growing the coriander (cilantro) for use as a micro herb it would be ready to harvest. Micro herbs generally take 14 to 20 days depending on what you are growing. Given that at the moment I only have two suitable shoots, I won’t do that and will leave them to grow more. I have grown various micro herbs in the past with great success. At one point there was a period where I used micro herbs to practice staggered planting. For a couple of weeks, all my meals at home were garnished with micro herbs. At first, my partner and I thought it was pretty funny having restaurant-quality garnishes to use at home on anything we ate, like a nice micro blend, delicately perched on a baked bean and cheese toasted sandwich, even the dog’s dinner wasn’t spared. For some reason, it wasn’t long before my partner asked that I grow something else other than micros.

At the moment my biggest concern with the herbs is moisture, their soil has been damp since they were planted, ideally, it should dry out before I water it again but despite being in direct sun the indoor temperature of my room never got high enough to help dry them out. Excess moisture runs the risk of root rot and possible mould strike. I have only watered them twice since the seeds were sown, the first was the initial water immediately after being and the second after I moved them to the balcony they now sit on. That’s twice in two and a half weeks. Hopefully, with the warmer weather coming and the pots now being outside they will get the chance to dry out a lot quicker than they were inside.

And as luck would have it I have just listed two of the five biggest problems faced by houseplants. If your houseplant or any plant for that reason is struggling its problems can generally be attributed to any of the 5 following factors,

1. Water- either too much or not enough.
2. Light – same as above, either too much or not enough.
3. Nutrients – like you and I plants need nutrients to grow big and strong.
4. Temperature – too hot and you can kill your plants, too cold and it affects their growth rate.
5. Pest/disease – uninvited guests or growth that aims to feed off and destroy your hard work.

In my next post I will go into greater detail on how to prevent and deal with these problems should you encounter them. As for now, I shall leave It there, I wish you all luck with your gardens, and if you’re growing herbs indoors as well good luck to you as well, why not leave a message and tell me what you’ve got growing?

Until next time, have a good one and catch you later.