Will Herbs Grow In Pure Vermicompost?

A lot has been said on using vermicompost or vermicast as an organic fertilizer and how it won't burn plants no matter how much you use.  Have you seen it for yourself?  I have.  Here's what happened to my recently rooted sweet basil cutting.  If I remember correctly, I cut it about 3 weeks ago and planted it in this makeshift pot about 1 1/2 weeks ago.  I used pure vermicompost as soil.  I only filled the cup about 1/5 of the way.  I didn't have a lot of finished vermicast at the time.  I'll increase the "soil" level in the coming weeks.   But as you can see, the sweet basil is done with its wilting stage and has now fully recovered.  It showed me that herbs can thrive in pure vermicast.   In fact I looked at the vermicompost closer and found that the basil roots grown through a lot.

As an aside, when seeding cuttings, you would often read that you need to remove all but the top four leaves in the cutting to minimize transpiration.  Perhaps that's true, but as the picture would show, a cutting with about a dozen or so leaves will root just as well. But that's summer for you.  Everything thrives in summer!

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Herb Cuttings Smell Bad

Have you ever tried rooting herbs in a glass of water? I've tried it with a good number of herbs: sweet basil, cinnamon basil, Thai basil, Swiss mint, chocolate mint, Japanese mint, lemon mint, tarragon, rosemary, stevia, lavender, cat's whiskers and some others.

In some cases, it would work. When it does work, I would usually see roots within a week. I don't usually remove a lot of the leaves (you'd usually read something like retain only the top four leaves) so the cuttings generally wilt for a few days without perking up.

If it's been a couple of days and the leaves look fresh, those cuttings will probably root.

In some cases, the leaves start to look wilted or just dry. Chances are, that will not root.

Three Basil Plants in a Row - Update

A couple of months ago, I posted about my three basil plants in a row (sweet basil, cinnamon basil and Thai basil).  Well, these plants have already matured and I've taken several cuttings from them.  One of my favorites is what I call the triple basil pot.  In this picture, I've combined the three cuttings in one pot.  And look how lush it has become after a few months.  So how do you tell which is which?  Start at the bottom of the picture.  The ones with the relatively crumpled leaves is Sweet Basil.  Don't ask me why but they tend to be more crumpled in appearance.  On the left side is the Thai basil; on the right is the Cinnamon Basil.   Here's the coolest thing though.  So it looks like they've outgrown the pot, right?  Indeed they have.  When I moved this pot a couple of days ago, I found that roots have already penetrated the bottom holes.  The plants have actually rooted to the ground!  Cool huh?  I guess that means the plants will survive even if I get sick for another week and fail to water them since they'll be getting moisture from the ground too.

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Sweet Basil: Wick Watering Update

Remember my post on wick watering?   Basically, I wanted to see if my basil will thrive with a wick watering set-up.  I placed my sweet basil in a yogurt cup and had a wick at the bottom.  The cup is contained in a larger cup with a hole about an inch from the bottom to ensure that rains won't drown my sweet basil.  Guess what?  It's been two months already.  I'll let the results speak for themselves.  Here are the before and after photos:

As you can see, the plants are really big enough.  In fact, I've pruned them before I took this picture.  You won't see it in the picture, but I don't even need the wick anymore.  Roots have gone through the drainage holes.  It's a pretty cool set-up.  I can water and leave them since the water will be good for a couple of days.   If it rains, the excess water just drains out. 

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Three Basils in a Row

I've loved sweet basil ever since I discovered that it's the main component of pesto.  But here's a revelation.  I'm pretty old and I just found that out since I started gardening again.  How crazy is that?  Anyway, you'll always read that basil loves full sun.  Since I've had all sorts of basil fatalities in the past, I just decided to put them all in the front yard where the sun is strongest.  Guess what?  I now have three different basil plants lined up (left to right, sweet basil, Thai basil, cinnamon basil) and they're all doing fine.  Combine the sun with the raised platform that keeps the pots from being flooded and it's all good.

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Sweet Basil: Wick Watering Setup

Over the past months, a lot of my Sweet Basil plants have died.   I am finding that they're more difficult to care for than Cinnamon Basil, which seems to be fairly hardy.  I've tried a hydroponic set-up for my Sweet Basil.  After a couple of weeks of solid growth, root rot got the best of my plants.  From about 15 stems with roots, I'm down to five small Sweet Basil plants.  Oh well.

So here's something new.  A couple of months ago, I read about wick watering. What is the concept behind it? You have a wick that's submerged into your pot on one end and connected to a water source on the other.  Supposedly, water travels through the wick.  Why not just water the soil straight?  Well, it is said that the wick absorbs only as much as the plant needs, thereby eliminating the chances of over and under watering.  So what's my set-up like?

Baked Potato Wedges

Since it was father's day over the weekend, Jean and I flexed our cooking muscles once again.  Naturally though, I selected something that made use of our favorite herbs.  At the same time, I also wanted to cook potatoes since they're high in potassium and are good for gout.  Besides, I recall how much I liked baked potatoes from Wendys and how strangely rare it was that I ordered it.

I was pretty excited when I got the basil and the parsley leaves from my backyard.  I used a bottled dried oregano since my Cuban Oregano doesn't really smell like oregano.  How weird is that?  As for the garlic, it'll be months before my plants bear fruit.

Anyway, here's a recipe I ripped and adapted from the Internet

# 4 large baking potatoes, wedged shopping list
# 1/2 cup quality olive oil shopping list
# 2T fresh Italian herbs(basil, oregano, flat leaf parsley, etc), finely minced shopping list
# 2 cloves garlic, minced shopping list
# A couple of slices of grated Parmesan cheese and I added a generous amount of Quick Melt cheese as well.
# fresh ground black pepper
# A tinge of salt 

* Boiled the potatoes for 5 minutes and then quartered them
* Combine all ingredients except potatoes and cheese in a large bowl.
* Dipped the potato wedges in the bowl.  In my opinion though, potato halves might have worked better since the garnish kept slipping off the wedges.
* Place on baking sheet .
* Place potatoes on tray in single layer.
* Top each wedge with Parmesan and Quick Melt cheese
* Bake at 425 for about 15 minutes.

For next time though, I think I'll boil it for 10 minutes first and then I'll bake it for another 10 minutes so that I don't overcook the garnish.  But then again, it was fun eating the crusted cheese too. I'll also be more generous with the herb usage. 

Anyway, in my rush to serve and eat it, I forgot to take pictures after baking.  So the before-shots will have to do.

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BASIL UPDATE

The rainy season is upon us so sunlight has become a little more valuable.  For my cinnamon basil, it looks like business as usual.  It's still big and bushy although I prune it at least once a week.  Even the ones grown in bottles of water (i.e. hydroponic basil)  have grown enough to be pruned.  I think it's because the front yard has fairly consistent sunlight and the pot is small enough for the water to get drained regularly.  Why is that relevant?  Well, it's been raining buckets so soil has been soggy all over the yard.  Unfortunately, it's not the same story as my sweet basil.

Since I pruned my upside down tomato (well decapitated is the word), it died a few weeks later. So I figured I'd try an upside down basil (picture 1).  Well it's been a couple of days since I planted it.  It looks like it doesn't turn towards the sun as fast as tomatoes do (a day!).  But, it certainly looks like it's bending towards the sun.  The other pots show my other sweet basil plants. I put them beside the wall to avoid the rain.  I need them to dry off a bit since I don't want root rot.  The pots are so heavy since the soil's really wet.  Never mind that they're a little stunted due to lack of sunlight.   I'll just have to move them around everyday to maximize the sunlight exposure.

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Pizza with Sweet Basil, Sweet Basil Fatalities

The past week, I tried a new snack: a homemade pizza!  Yey!  Ever since I was a little kid, pizza has always been my favorite snack.  And it didn't matter what sort of pizza it was.  Whether it was 3M or from the Tulips Bakery in Project 6 (yes, it's a bakery with pizza), I couldn't get enough.   It's still true now.  Recently, I also read that Basil is one of the big three Italian spices (Oregano and Garlic being the other two).  So let's put it all together.

My mom got some pizza dough.  I poured in some Italian spaghetti sauce, grated some Quick Melt Cheese, peppered in some grated Parmesan Cheese, sprinkled it with some dried Garlic and of course topped it off with chopped Sweet Basil leaves and toasted the whole concoction in a basic oven toaster.   It tasted really good!  Maybe next time, I'll put in a couple of drops of Olive Oil to make it taste even more Italian.

Anyway, back in the garden, I saw some Sweet Basil fatalities; even some of those grown in water.  I'm not sure why.  I have a couple of theories.  Three of the plants that died were recently pruned.  When I cut these, I left two very small leaves each.  It may have been a case of over pruning.  I don't really know.  It could be some disease too since about four of these plants died in the same week.  As for those remaining, I cleaned up some of the stems.  I cut out the dead roots (I saw some new white ones sprouting).  I then placed them in another container with clean water.  Let's hope for the best.

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If You're Not a Good Gardener...

Time and time again, I've pointed out that I'm a statistical gardener. If I keep trying, something's bound to grow and thrive in my garden.  Case in point: I bought this seedling bed over two months ago.  It was supposed to house my tomatoes.   I've transplanted out a whole lot of those because tomatoes are supposed to be big ass plants and my bed could only accommodate three full grown ones.  Most of them died post transplant.  The ones that remained in the bed also died.  I planted a sweet basil seedling there.  It died.

Enter statistics.  Today, the seedling bed is home to a couple of plants.  I have a Cuban Oregano there, which I think I'm not very fond of.  I will ship that out soon.  I have a Peppermint plant, which is doing okay.  I've also thrown in a couple of seeds there which have grown.  The problem is that I don't know which is which.  The seedlings you see in the pictures could be calamansi, melon or watermelon.  I also have a bunch of tomato seedlings there (new batch).  I really won't know until they bear fruit I guess.   The point is, the seedling bed is full because I keep trying to grow stuff there. Every time I eat something with seeds, I throw the seeds there and in my other newly vacated (read: the plant died) pots.  Statistically, something is bound to grow and succeed.   ;-) 

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Hydroponic Basil and Foliar Feeding

A couple of days ago, I talked about hydroponic mint and foliar feeding and how it seems to be working out just fine.   Will the same treatment work with Basil? That is, will Basil also grow and thrive in a pure water medium?  Let me give you a roundabout answer.

Recipe: How to Make Basil Pesto Sauce

I need to entertain myself while I'm waiting for my donated sweet basil to grow.   Nothing much has changed since I planted it.  There are two small leaves in the center plant.  But funny enough, the leaf with roots stood up!  I can't imagine how that will continue to grow.  We'll see in a couple of weeks.   As for my cinnamon basil, I've cut too much in the past weeks already in the name of propagation so I have to wait for it to grow back a bit before going on a cutting and rooting spree again.   For now, I will entertain myself with a Basil Pesto recipe.   I chose one with no nuts, since nuts are high in uric acid and are bad for my gout. It's also a middle ground in terms of ingredients since the ratios vary per site that I visited.  Like everything else, just experiment and see what you'll like.

Adopted Plants: Chrysanthemums, Sweet Basil, and Lavender

I've just attended another session of Gardener's Anonymous (GA).  This time around, I took pictures of a couple of plants I transplanted into pots yesterday.  All these came from Jean and each had its own story.

Let's start with the funniest one.  In one of our first adventures, we bought mums.   That was about two months ago.  She has a textbook behavior of pruning diseased leaves.  With that, her mums kinda shrank.  But then it recovered!  Enter the bird.  For about two weeks now, the mums' growth has been stunted because a bird kept visiting and snacking on the plant.  In the bird's defense, I figured it was just pruning.  Now I have the mums so that it can grow for a while without being a bird snack.  Let's see what happens.