Our herb garden has been planted! Not an easy feat on a weekend sprinkled with rain showers to dodge and graduation parties to attend. Add to that a mystery that needed to be solved before the planting to begin, and the accomplishment seems almost miraculous.
The mystery sprouted in the container pot that housed thyme, oregano, and rosemary. The shape of the seedlings immediately eliminated rosemary as a suspect. My inclination was to declare last year’s thyme the culprit, but decided to sleuth a little before making any accusations. So I did the first thing any good detective does in this day and age. I searched the internet for pictures of herb seedlings…and discovered they look a lot alike.
So I did the second thing any good plant detective does. I crushed one of the seedlings, gave it a good sniff an compared the scent to the scents of the dried oregano and thyme in my spice cabinet. The results of the test were ambiguous, so I repeated the experiment. At which point my allergies kicked in, and I couldn’t smell a thing.
So I did the third thing any good plant detective does. I drove to the nursery for an herb pot line up. Lo and behold, the German thyme was a dead ringer for the suspects back home. Determined to not declare thyme guilty without indisputable proof, I gave the suspect a sniff. The scent was a perfect match. I had proved without a doubt in the world that the pot at home contained all the thyme in the world.
Then, I did the fourth thing a good plant detective does. I purchased a pot each of rosemary and oregano, went home, and started planting. Which was when this detective discovered she’d wasted a whole lot of thyme time planting cilantro a few weeks back. Last year’s crop had seeded itself in the sidewalk cracks as prolifically as the time thyme had seeded it its pot.
Which goes to show I have a lot to learn before being considered a herb gardening expert. But with all the thyme in the world at my disposal, I have plenty of time to get there.
