Katy Ereira

Look At My Garden Grow!

Remember a while ago I attempted growing some herbs? Well, the coriander and parsley died... but the basil (try brie, basil and tomato in crusty rolls) and chives (on salad) are delicious! 50% success rate, I wouldn't say that was too bad for a novice first attempt!

At the same time as planting some herbs, I also planted some tomato plants - 15 in total. They have been doing extremely well and are beginning to produce fruit! I can't wait to eat them.

We went to the garden centre yesterday with the intention of getting some pot plants to place in our 'front garden' - a little bit of gravel surrounded by a low brick wall. I chose a giant pot, a pink grass, and some colourful trailing flowers to surround it. It just makes walking up to our front door that little bit more inviting, and walking by that little bit more interesting! I was getting jealous of the pot plant arrangements the people down the road have.

I also picked up another little gem - my mother spotted it, intrigued by the name... Chocolate Cosmos, and Oh My God. The flowers smell DELICIOUS. Exactly like hot chocolate! I put it in a special little pot now sitting near to the tomatoes in my back garden, basking in the... well, not-quite-sun. I could just go and sit out there and sniff this thing, and the tomatoes, all day.

Sowing Seeds

We've had such beautiful weather here since earlier this week. At first I thought that the sun was trying to fool me. You know how it can be really sunny but it's actually freezing? I went out on Wednesday wearing my coat, a hat, my rainbow mitts, and a lacy scarf - I wasn't going to be caught out. Mistake! Yesterday it was hot enough that my arms got sunburn. Sun lotion weather in April? Wow.

So today, wearing my summer dress and a straw hat (and some sun lotion, of course!), I sat in the garden and decided to plant some herbs. We went to Waitrose earlier in the morning to pick up some compost, pots, a little box of seeds and an extremely cute Gruffalo mini trowel just perfect for the job at hand.

There were four types of herb in the pack, all suitable for growing indoors or outdoors from March - Basil, Parsley, Chives and Coriander. The process was quite simple. Fill a pot 1cm from where you want the top of the soil to be, sow the seeds, cover with 1cm of soil, and water until moist.

The four pots are now living on the most sunny window ledge in our kitchen. Most of the herbs prefer direct sunlight except parsley which prefers shade in summer. Most of the herbs also like to be watered regularly (but not over-watered) except for the coriander, which doesn't need much at all.

I'm notoriously bad at growing plants, especially those from seeds (except perhaps cress in the form of fun childhood projects), so I'm quite interested to see how these will turn out. Stay tuned!