Some of us recently did a fun little “herb garden” project. Herbs and resources are hard to find here, but with a little persistence, problem solving and creativity we were able to find a solution.
Mr. Parsley joined our family as a stow-away from South Africa.
And Mr. Mint was found growing in our garden thanks to some previous ex-patriots who apparently lived here a while before us. Our guards are still baffled at what this foreign plant actually is, but we shall see if they like it in tea. 😉
The problem of protection from the scorching African sun arose which made for a logical idea of baskets.
Since we only found one basket idea that was horridly expensive, extremely small and didn’t hang, it was time to get creative. We gathered our supplies and got to work. Two plastic baskets and one rice bag later, we had spent $4.50 on the hanging basket part. Mr. Parsley cost us $3 and Mr. Mint was free. A total of $7.50 was still significantly cheaper than the original small basket we encountered.
We cut and sewed the rice bag. Why a rice bag? We used it to contain the soil in the basket (that has air holes) and allow for a sifter for excess water to pass out of the soil so as not to rot the plant roots.
Mobility was an important factor in this project as the African sun can easily scorch plants (as has been the case for most of Mr. Mint’s family). So we used ribbons to hang our baskets and allow for moving of them out of direct sunlight as we monitor their progress. This also allows them to come inside too, which is a fun addition to the kitchen window (that doesn’t receive much sun but could be a nice refuge for some heat-exhausted plants).
It was a fun little project and we’re enjoying the fruits of our labor amidst our daily reality of cooking from scratch. 🙂
Fresh is lovely so we say, “let it grow.” 😉
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