growing herbs

[cellio]

I am not equipped with gardening clues, but last year one of my spring CSA boxes contained a basil seedling, and I was able to keep that plant healthy and bountiful all summer. So between that success and liking basil rather a lot, and also because food shortages and venturing out are concerns, I want to try growing at least some herbs if not also some small vegetables. (Any such projects must be growable in pots.) But where to get seedlings? (Not my CSA; they cancelled this year.) I was starting to look at mail-order options (which do, it turns out, exist -- quality unknown).

Today we needed an item of household repair and did not want to wait a month, so we went to Home Depot. They are being careful and we are being careful. And lo! Home Depot has a garden shop that has plants for sale now. (I'd been thinking I was a few weeks too early.) So I now have these two additions to the household, and another pot (because I only had the one from last year), and I will do some Google research about cherry tomatoes (which they had in abundant variety but I don't know what they require or how to choose).

The basil plant is very small (they all were); perhaps it is in fact early to be doing this. (Maybe I should have gotten a second one as insurance.) But look at that rosemary go! I'll keep the basil inside on a windowsill for a while, but the rosemary might need to go into a proper pot before too much longer.

Oh brain trust, what vegetables, as opposed to herbs, are pretty idiot-proof and container-suitable? If I'm watering one pot it doesn't seem a big deal to water two (that's why I added the rosemary), and if I'm watering two it doesn't seem a big deal to water three, though I grant that this logic has its eventual limits.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

I love basil and rosemary!

container gardening

[hlinspjalda]

Green leafies of any sort. Romaine and arugula are what I'd choose, but I bet a lot of the other ones are just as simple. Little tomatoes in pots, as you say.

The only other container vegetable I can bring to mind at this time of night is chili peppers. If the cuisine you enjoy includes chiles you might want to look into that.

[hudebnik]

I usually get some basil seedlings every year, either Greek or Thai or both, and raise them in a window-box outdoors in the (concrete) back yard. Thai chili peppers, although not available until later in the year, seem to do well in a pot indoors by a sunny window: one year I was still harvesting in December. We've had rosemary and lavender growing outdoors for a number of years: in one particularly cold winter the rosemary didn't survive, but most years it's come through like a champ. I haven't tried growing salad greens yet.