I am interested in your... "Angel's Choir" "Jersey Cream, California Poppy" T "Venus" C- 2 more trades left "Black Peony" C "Purple Jester" C "Coral Reef" C Basil "Profumo Di Genova" C Renee's Garden "Windowbox Mini Basil" C Renee's Garden "French Perfume Lavender" C Renee's Garden "French Thyme" C Renee's Garden Oregano, True Greek C Renee's Garden Sage, Italian Aromatic C Renee's garden Rosemary, French C Renee's Garden Please check out my trade list. I hope to hear from you soon. Melissa

It can be fun to experiment with growing seed when you're a beginner, but it can also be incredibly frustrating! I suggest you take a visit to your local plant nursery and start off with seedlings (baby plants). This is a double advantage. First, your plants have a head start, giving you rewards sooner; second, you have the opportunity to taste and smell the plants before you buy. Slow-growing plants like Bay take forever to grow from seed - and rosemary can be a very slow starter, too. One of the major gripes on this forum is the fact that there is very little regulation regarding the labelling of plants or seeds. Too often, you'll see a label on a packet of seeds saying 'French Tarragon', but you can be quite confident that it will NOT be French tarragon - because FT rarely sets viable seed! Similarly, the plant you buy may be Russian Tarragon (an almost tasteless weed), or even Winter Tarragon (which is a very fair substitute, actually, but not a tarragon). Another example of fraud is peppermint. Peppermint is actually sterile, so it must be propagated vegetatively - by cuttings, layering or division. Yet people merrily continue to sell packets of seeds labelled 'peppermint'. It makes me grind my teeth! So - while you're browsing amongst the plants, don't be afraid to pick off a leaf - crush it, smell it, taste it. With Tarragon, you should get an astonishing mouth-numbing effect (great for tooth-ache!). Taste the difference between spearmint and peppermint - there is no mistaking the differences with a taste-test! Do some WWW-searching to learn the botanical names of edible herbs. For instance, there are hundreds of species of sage, but only a very few are edible - you'll be looking for Salvia officinalis. For bay leaves, you'll be looking for Laurus nobilis, and no other. You can be somewhat more confident that seeds bought in the herb/spice deparment in your supermarket are correctly labelled. Herbs like fenugreek, mustard, coriander (what you call cilantro), caraway, cumin etc usually germinate very well - and haven't been chemically treated like many propagation-purpose seeds. You can also look out for fresh herbs from the fruit/vege section of your supermarket. You'll often get plants in small pots - these are usually fed with lots of nitrogen to hasten leaf growth, while the roots will be a bit pot-bound, but you can often get them to grow if you don't leave them too long before transplanting them. And in amongst the veges, you'll find onions and garlic and ginger and lemongrass. When planted, onions and garlic and ginger roots will grow; and if the lemongrass stems have even a tiny little root on it, that will grow, too. With a lot of the herbs you'll end up with, you can collect seed from them, or take cuttings, and you'll end up with a perpetual supply. Of course, you'll need to provide the right conditions for all your herbs, so it helps to know where they originated, and to copy as near as possible the conditions there (climate, soil, etc). Also learn about which plants are annuals, and which are perennials. Any good nursery should be able to supply lots of that sort of information on request. Don't forget to browse through this forum, using the Search facility if you like. There is some excellent information to be found here.

Hey there, I too will share what I have learned... Basil - It will grow in a pot or garden (if you use a pot I suggest it has own pot), one plant will take all the dirt if you let it(unless in the garden), more plants and the dirt runs out sooner. I suggest you kill it early, having planted one every other week or so, that is unless you want free seeds. In that case let one or a few plants live till they flower and die, or if you want just trim the flower/seed part off after the majority of the flowers have open and turned brown, then harvest the seed, very easy to do, just a little time consuming. You can keep using the basil though some think that the basil becomes bitter after it sets flowers, i cannot tell the difference. As for starting from seeds, start them in your normal pot, just broadcast a few seeds on the dirt, water it and it will grow. If you harvest your own seeds you will no longer worry about how many seeds you put down(i.e. you will have too many!) Garlic Chives - mine are in a sq ft garden, Mine are three years old now, started from seed, and transplanted. They will over winter fine (they just look ugly during the winter). The leaves have gotten broader each year, they look nothing like the chives at the store, but they taste good! I agree with what others have said each plant has a bulb it works from, and has a few to several leaves per bulb. I am sure these would work in a pot, but I think if you can put them in the yard or garden it would be much better for you they are a very tidy decorative plant. These too will go to seed, they produce a cool little flower for each plant (the bees loved these!!!). That is where the seeds are developed. also you can eat the flower if you want, just tear it apart and use like chives. You can save the seed for spring if you want each flower makes like 25+ seeds, way too many for me use, as you do not have to replant chives each year. Cilantro - Really easy to grow, broadcast some seed, water if you want, they start regardless. They do have a hard time in the heat, just plant more (seeds are free!) I think they do like a mostly sunny spot that has some shade in the day (they did better when I had a lot together, probably kept the ground cooler). Leave a couple or more to go to seed again, and free seed!! Each plant (depending on size) make like 10-50 seeds. Again you won't care about the amount you plant you have plenty from each plant. Again the plant tends to lose flavor when they go to seed. Their ok in a pinch (nutritionally they should be ok just not as much flavor). I suggest a planting each week if you really like it, or every other week if you don't. Takes a few (2-4) weeks to reach a collectable amt per plant. These will over winter BUT the plant has no flavor (sometimes a bad flavor) in spring time. Suggest tilling in, unless some one knows if the plant will recover? I have one plant that has overwinter and is becoming bigger than any cilantro plant I have every had, it is the size of a large parsley plant now, I want to see if it recovers or not. Btw collecting their seed is way easier than the basil's, they have a large seeds. Btw the seed as a spice is called Coriander, I set some seed aside for cooking with. Thyme - A store bought starter plant, is several years old now overwinters fine, but has thick (2-3mm) stock now like kinda like a little bonsai tree (haha). Not as productive as first year (but that may be because I STUPIDLY put pasta water on it, DOH there is salt in that!!! It's not good for the plant you know, didn't kill it though, just made the leaves really tiny. haha that hurt to write). Even though it has flowered, I have not found how to get seeds yet (though I have not searched yet). It has pretty little flowers, could be something ornamental if you wanted. I have started other plants from clippings, just give be sure it has enough plant to give it the chance to live. Parsley - I started with seed (this year, and last year), I have it in the garden and in pots. in the garden it might overwintered fine, last years plant was older with a large root the size of a carrot or so, it rotted before the middle of winter, this years plant is still alive and is growing fine, go figure. Though it is not a bushy little plant, now it is a flat plant very close to the ground, tastes fine though. The plants in the pots are from last year, they are still doing well, I had them inside during the winter, seem to fare well in the window, almost no growth as expected though, that is until I put them outside in the late winter sun. These did not go to seed, though I thought they should have (would have been nice, but no free seed!). Garlic - This is the first year for me, and they are still in the ground. Pots should work, I think ground is better. I started the first batch in the garden in October, the second batch was in pots planted about Nov-Dec, they sprouted inside the house by the window. The first batch in the garden really took off now the weather has warmed, with some of the stalks now about an inch in diameter (much bigger than I expected as it is not supposed to be ready to harvest until August). The second batch isn't doing as well. These were put out before the last frost, and taken in at night (to avoid the frost), to take advantage of the warmer weather and sunlight. But they have not had the growth the first batch have had, they just seem spindly, but I think they will catch up. I have just planted another batch in the garden. I really think that the way these are sprouting they may catch up to the first batch. My original spacing was with 4 per sq ft, I think that is too far apart though, I think that you could probably squeeze 5 in a sq ft easily. I'm told the garlic leaves are edible (might be thought though), use them like green onions. Garlic may develop a bulb looking item on a stalk (and/or flower) this is a seed/clove and is also edible or you can plant it. I saw a video from some farmer on expertvillage.com and he had a great Idea. Intended for plantings in a garden, but works in a pot also. Say for example you have a garden full of winter vegetables right now, no room for garlic. Well what you do is plant the whole head of garlic in October like normal in a small area or a pot. The cloves sprout, you let them grow like normal till spring, then remove the bunch of sprouts and separate them (carefully) and transplant them where you want when the ground is ready, viola you have a jump start for the garlic. I have tried this, so far the plants seem good. Mint - grown from seed in a pot, grows and grows and grows... Once established will take over anything you put it in pot, garden, yard... beware the mint! Its not as bad as that, but I have heard the horror stories... Also I don't know why but... my mint sucks, It has no flavor, no aroma, little leaves. I'm gonna give it till the summer to shape up or I'm gonna compost the little sucker. Gonna have to find a better mint, suggest you try before you buy a plant. Oregano - Grown from seed, in pot, this might overwinter. Grows similar to mint with it's long stems,though they do grow a lot slow than mint. It might be able to grow up a trellis, and may be worth it as it has nice little flowers. The stems will take root to begin a new plant if you want, not sure about how to get the seeds though. Oregano in an 8 inch pot got root bound by end of the season. Sage - Was grown from seed in a pot, started last spring. It is a shrub so should have no problem overwintering. I have several plants in one 8 inch pot, does not seem root bound yet. Alright hope this helps, sorry I was so long winded!!.

This isn't entirely related to tops from hell but any advice would be greatly appreciated! I live in southern China and recently found a basil plant growing at a local agricultural center. They let me dig up a plant and take it home. (A very excting thing as basil is hard to find in China.) So the plant recovered well from the move and started growing quite well. Then a couple of weeks later it started flowering and I cut the stems just below the top leaf node after the flower bud. It continued to grow well and fill out but then recently something has changed. There are small bumps developing on the stalks all the way from the bottom up. At the base of the main stalk the bumps have grown into lots of little mini-root like things. As well the new leaves are turning yellow. Is this normal? I took some clippings a couple of days ago - as I got scared I would lose my one source of fresh basil - and stuck them in water. The bumps are all shooting off into what looks like roots. It's very hot here and extremely humid. I make sure the pot has good ventilation and I water it regularly. Any advice? Should I bring it inside? Thanks!