Hi Jeff!

Oh, what wonderful news--a new baby! Congratulations to you and your DW. I hope all is going well and that somebody in your home is getting some sleep. (Hopefuly, all three of you are sleeping well!)

I am glad to hear that so many of your plants came back this spring. You know, all your research and hard prep work paid off because you had a great year.

Watch for little chamomile seedlings to pop up. Mine reseeds everywhere. Since you are in a colder zone than I am, it may be that yours just haven't sprouted yet.

I am a fan of planting too closely, by the way. I love the "jungle look" when everything is huge and tightly packed into gather, although I know some people prefer a more restrained look. In my experience, too, spacing plants farther apart just leaves bare soil for weeds to colonize, so be sure you mulch the areas in between plants to keep that from happening.

ANY and ALL of the herbs you asked about will do just fine in containers, so plant to your heart's content. Just be sure to use a well-drained container mix so that your herb roots don't get waterlogged. Most herbs prefer well-drained soil.

And the bay laurel may or may not survive winter in your zone. It is a zone 8 plant, although some people can overwinter them successfully in zone 7 in a very sheltered location. Even then, though, when a colder than normal winter hits, the zone 7 bay laurels usually don't make it.

Dawn

Hi Jeff, Humm - a month old baby - 10 months ago that garden wasn't keeping you busy enough. It must be time to make the garden bigger and more demanding. Those things can happen more than once, you know. Better do more reporting or more gardening. Contrats on the new little one.

I can't help you with your question. I know a lot more about babies than I do about herbs.

Are we getting a lot os Jeffs here?

Hey, y'all.

Yeah, we're getting some sleep. But my poor wife is breastfeeding, and has to get up every 2 hours for feedings. I often have to poke both her and the baby so they will wake up and continue the meal.

So it's possible that my chamomile might still sprout? That would be really cool. It was one of my favorite plants in the garden. Pretty, useful and seemed to give the plants around it a real boost.

I guess the "jungle look" as you put it, is cool. But it was so crowded that some plants were swallowed by their more successful neighbors. And the plants were so close together that weeding was difficult as well.

The newspaper method kept the weeds down for most of the season, however. So I bet I'll try that again once I'm sure that all my volunteers have sprouted.

About the container plants -- I still have plenty of compost on hand. Would the potted plants benefit from the addition of a few handfuls of compost in the potting soil, or not?

Your poor wife. I feel for her because I know she's not getting enough sleep.

I do think your chamomile still might sprout. I have some that is in bloom now, and yet, new sprouts are showing up daily, and our soil is in the lower to mid-60s. Your soil is probably somewhere in the 50s. If it is going to sprout, it should do so by mid-May. (Of course, I am assuming you left some flowers on last year's plants so they could set seed.)

Yes, yes, yes....add that compost to the potting soil. You can never go wrong with compost (well, except that you shouldn't try to plant in pure compost because it drains exceptionally fast).

Dawn

You guys - what in the heck does chamomile like? I've tried growing it 3 times and gave up. Could not get it to do anything but curl up its toes and die.

Jeff - good to see you back here! Glad to hear about your successes. Dill is an annual, btw. But sprouts readily from seeds. It also prefers cool weather, so usually our summer heat will do it in.

Got plenty of tropical milkweed seeds if anyone wants to provide food for the Monarchs!

Susan

That's odd what Susan said about the dill. Mine shot up like a rocket when it got really hot. Maybe all the rain we had last summer kept it from drying out?

I wish I knew what a chamomile sprout looked like so I wouldn't accidentally pluck it. As for the plant itself, I never had a chance to actually pull it out of the ground. The flowers dropped seeds and the whole plant turned into straw almost overnight.

I don't know why the chamomile Susan is growing hasn't worked for her. It was a very low-maintenance plant for me. It thrived, actually.

The soil I grew it in was clayey/sandy with LOTS of remediation done to it (mostly compost and manure). It gets lots of good drainage (it's terraced ground, so it's a bit like gardening in a raised box bed) and plenty of sun, especially in the afternoon.

As for my tomatoes, I hope we see less rain this year. There was so much last year that my tomatoes cracked! Even some of my cherry tomatoes cracked!

Susan,

Like Jeff, I am a bit puzzled that chamomile gives you trouble and can only guess that maybe your soil holds either more moisture than ours, or holds on to the moisture a bit longer. Chamomile, as near as I can tell from growing it for many years, likes really well-drained soil that verges on being almost dry. I have had it reseed itself into clay that holds quite a bit of moisture and it even did well there....and, in fact, got bigger in that thick clay than in my improved garden soil in my raised veggie/herb beds. But, just because it seems to thrive in drier soil doesn't mean it won't grow in somethat moister soil. When mine are in moister soil, they just get significantly larger. I keep them deadheaded (the dried flowers make great chamomile tea) and that keeps 'em going longer tool. When allowed to set seed at the end of the season, they drop a lot of seed and, thus, reseed like mad and I have dozens, if not hundreds, of new ones come up every year.

As for dill.....I have never noticed that the heat is particularly hard on it. Of course, I like to harvest the foliage to dry for dill weed and, by doing that, I am keeping it from setting seed, so it does last a whole lot longer. The minute it sets seed, though, poof...it is done! I usually cut and harvest dill weed for a long time before I let it go to seed so I can then harvest the dill seed.

Jeff,

Chamomile seedlings look very similar to the adult plant, just smaller and thinner. They are very, very thin and wispy, almost feathery looking when they emerge. They are that lovely light spring green, almost a Granny Smith apple type of green. When they first emerge, they are very, very small but they grow pretty quicly. Once you see a chamomile seedling, you'll never forget it because it has a unique delicate look. Also, the foliage has a delightful scent--sort of sweet and somewhat like apples. I don't know if the scent is apparent when they are really tiny, but I know that I can smell it when I dig up small seedlings out of the pathways and transplant them somewhere else.

As for the tomatoes cracking, it would have been unusual if they HADN'T cracked in last year's rain. Hopefully this year will be drier. Once your fruit are ripening, keep the watering to a minimum and that will both decrease the cracking and intensify the flavor.

OK, I only came inside to grab a quick bite to eat. Now I need to get back out to the garden where I am, in fact, transplanting chamomile seedlings from the pathway to a tomato bed.

Dawn

Congrats on the new baby! How wonderful! Also on the baby herbs as well...lol.
G.M.

Last year, we didn't get as hot as we normally do, so some of my cool weather plants did great through the entire summer.

You know, some of the simplest things - that anyone can grow supposedly - turn out to be the most difficult for me. I can usually grow the more difficult plants with ease, but give me something that is EASY, and I'll mess it up somehow. Does it make a difference between the German and/or Roman chamomile, for instance?

Are we going to have another Pot luck/get together in OKC for Oklahoma Gardeners? I so enjoyed last year's.

I just got thru buying lots of fennel, the tuberous and the bronze, plus more Rue, of course. I need to get outside and cut my lavendar way back, except for the new one I got last year. I have garlic chives, and when it blooms, the butts go wild over it.

Supposedly there is also a new pineapple sage on the market that looked beautiful to me - saw it on Oklahoma Gardening last week. I know they're annuals, but OMG they are such a beautiful, bright red in fall.

Now you guys don't pick on me so much just cuz I can't grow chamomile. Guess I'm gonna have to try it one more time. You say it likes dry soil? Maybe I overwatered mine, but it was located in a place with great drainage. I grow my lavendar there, which has to have almost perfect drainage to survive.

Does it need lots of sun, or can it take some shade?

Susan