this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Update on my gardening journey

We went to Bunnings today and had a look at some plants. I decided to go with herbs to start off with, since I don't really know what I'm doing, and herbs seem somewhat happier. Ended up getting a few and a large raised garden bed, as well as 2 mint plants and 2 rosemary plants (as well as 2 completely seperate pots for those). So I settled on Oregano, pizza thyme (I've never had thyme before but pizza thyme sounded funny), sweet basil, Italian parsley, mint, and rosemary. Now that I write all that out, it sounds like a lot, but we got a fairly large garden bed and the potting mix we got said it could support all of those, so that's the main reason we chose them

Not really looking for any advice, Bunnings seem to have decently in depth articles written up on them and the people in the store were very helpful suggesting the right pots, potting mix, and garden bed to choose. I'm just very excited! I don't actually know what any of those really taste like fresh, I think I've had fresh parsley and that's it.

Pic:

Things probably aren't planted properly (is the term sowed?), but I'm very proud of the fact everything is actually in a pot/bed, even if not perfectly

Edit: oh, and despite being the least handy person I know, Bunnings put that curse thing on me and now on the weekend I'm going to learn how to change a shower head and install a tv mount

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Herbs are a good choice. Fresh herbs are great to have for cooking and tend to be the best value for money as plants go.

Planted is the correct term - sowing is for seeds, planting for plants. If you get really into gardening you might also get to use "pricking out" which is moving very tiny sprouted seedlings into pots.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah herbs did seen like the best thing to start with, and you don't usually need a lot of them when you're cooking either, so everything I got should satisfy my herb needs for a while!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Looks good! They’ll settle their roots in and grow happily.

If you find the parsley doesn’t perk up, that’s normal, just keep picking leaves from the outside and new ones will grow upright from the centre.

It should be fine. Only mention it because I once had to do that with a supermarket rescue parsley. When I took the supporting cellophane off the pot the whole thing looked like it had fainted and drooped outward.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks melb! Yeah, the roots looked a bit sad when I moved then from their pot and I was a little bit worried about how they'd go

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah they can have a bit of transplant shock if their roots are disturbed or damaged. Hopefully with watering they settle in okay. 🤞

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks :) a few of them didn't seem too happy about being moved and ended up with half their roots falling off, but hopefully they'll take well

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Looking good!

One thing to bear in mind, planters lose water faster than in the ground. You want to be careful on high sunlight days, as water can magnify sun rays (so leaves with water droplets on them will scald), so try and get the ground around them. Mulch is your friend, will stop evaporation from the top layers.

If it's a REALLY hot day, no matter how much water you give them they may look wilty - this is normal. Plants will pull water out of their leaves in high heat so they don't boil. Check how they look when the sun goes down, you should see them starting to plump back up as the plant sees the boiling danger has passed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the warning Taleya! I would 100% have thought they'd died lol. I also didn't realise water would do that, well I mean, I knew it could do that, just not that it'd affect the plants too much

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

no worries, had to talk His Lordship out of a tree more than once when that's happened! particularly leafy greens are a bugger for it, they have hundreds of fine capillaries all through the leaf that carry water. Generally check on them when the suns at the level it is now - plenty of light left, no heat, no blaze. If still wilty then, water. And don't be afraid to stick a finger in the soil! up to about the middle knuckle - the top end of your finger should have lovely damp soil sticking to it, if not, water deeply