You know how you love Thai food and then you decide to try cooking it and it doesn't turn out too bad so you reckon you could get down with nature and grow some of that coriander in a pot and so you buy some and it immediately dies and so you buy some more and plant it in the dirt and it goes to seed more quickly than the stuff you bought in pots carked it and you swear off trying to grow it ever again and go back to paying two bucks a bunch from the supermarket and it's always slimy and you end up associating Thai cooking with slight failure even before you start?
I used to be like that.
Used to.
But it turns out nature works.
That bit where it goes to seed? Apparently those seeds contain some of free-love, hippie-huggin' magic because now I ain't growing bunches of coriander, I'm growing trees.
Check out my forest.
Yeah.
King Coriander swingin' through tha treez
(of coriander).
Yeah.
King Coriander swingin' through tha treez
(of coriander).
I failed at coriander growing when I tried it. I forgot I'd planted it and when it came up it looked a bit like celery, so I waited for it to grow big, like celery, completely forgetting that my celery was on the opposite side of the yard. When the coriander stayed small, I thought it was dud celery and ripped it out.
ReplyDeleteYours looks fantastic, you could supply the local Thai restaurants.
Is that camomile I see down in front? Or feverfew?
That is tragically hilarious.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your query: they are some kind of flowers.
That's about as botanical as I get.
Your first half has always been our experience. But even when we've said, "stuff it" and let the sodding stupid plant do what it likes we've NEVER had the corry-forest that you've got going there!
ReplyDeleteWe planted those flowers (can't remember what they were exactly) after reading some stuff about organic plants that deter pests from eating the good stuff...in two minds about whether it actually works
ReplyDeleteKath - I might have neglected to mention that every time I've planted something I've liberally shaken around a bunch of fertiliser pellets.
ReplyDeleteBut still ...
Mele - I get the feeling that they're like the rock that keeps tigers away in The Simpsons.
No tigers, but we still got bugs ...
Like everything else that's supposed to deter pests, you need a lot more than one or two plants. I've read hints in several permaculture books that say for each plant you're trying to protect, you need three of the deterrent plants. or in the case of tomatoes, the tomato bed literally needs to be surrounded by the deterrent plant. I'm about 99% sure your flowers are feverfew, a tea can be made from the flowers and used to treat headaches. I've never done this, preferring panadol.
ReplyDelete