Heart of the Garden

I went to Chanticleer and had to restrain myself from copying everything they did there. They had a strawberry pot filled with herbs and it made so much sense. Terra cotta pots dry out so quickly, I don’t understand why they are so ubiquitous. And I don’t understand strawberry pots. Strawberries seem to prefer hills, not being jammed into tiny holes in moisture-sucking clay pots. But hardy herbs, on the other hand… english and lemon thyme, oregano, spearmint, sage, and lavender at the top. Obviously the sage sprig at the bottom (a volunteer transplant plucked from my pea gravel path) didn’t appreciate the move.

In order to get the water to actually saturate the lower layers, I stuck an ugly pvc (yuck, sorry) pipe with lots of holes drilled in it down the middle. Not sure if the holes are big enough because it might just be syphoning the water directly to the drain hole at the bottom. If you do this, be sure to make the holes BIG and  possibly stop up the bottom of the pipe. Maybe wrap it in wire mesh to keep it from getting clogged with dirt, if you have the time and compunction.

I saw another strawberry pot filled with johnny jump ups at Chadds Ford  Greenhouse today (which has no web presence for some odd reason even though it’s great and there’s a really neat lady who works there who I can totally imagine being friends if I was cooler and less of a hermit. She wears great altern-adult-punk outfits and I think she mentioned that she got a masters in historic practices or somesuch thing. It gives me hope to come across people like that out here in the boonies. So it IS possible to maintain my toehold in urban culture. And I don’t have to give in to the suburban pull to put an OBX bumper sticker next to a series of infantilizing family chalk drawing decals on my car.

And pardon the cardboard in the photo. I’m trying to kill the dumb grass and keep weeds down until we can get some slate and gravel paths going. I highly recommend cardboard for weeds. Newspaper works too apparently, but I had a ton of boxes and they don’t fly around as much.