Well, I made it to the hardware store and schlepped around the gardening department for a while, trying to not look too confused and befuddled. They were running a two-for-one deal on most of the herbs, yay! But it took me a while to figure out that thyme, our number one most used fresh herb, was grouped with the “ground cover” plants rather than the herbs, boo. And then I had to puzzle through the difference between “woolly thyme” and “creeping thyme”. (I’m pretty sure they both creep, but the woolly thyme unsurprisingly looked fuzzier, so I went with the “creeping thyme”.)

Also there were a bunch of different types of basil. Since we don’t use it much currently, I pretty much picked at random and ended up with sweet basil. I also picked up sage, dill, and “garlic chives”, which just sounds yummy.

Anyway, they weren’t terribly expensive, so I won’t feel too bad if they die off really quickly. If nothing else I hope that they’ll be good practice for me. They’re in pots for now, but when things get hotter I may need to look to put them in the ground or at least move the pots to a shadier spot, since I think the roots can fry if they get too hot… or something…

You may have noticed in the background of the picture above there’s a big wooden container with some sort of plant growing in it. (It kinda looks like a bush in the picture.) I’ve been ignoring it right from day one because it didn’t immediately sprout pretty flowers, and I’ve been pretty frustrated at my inability to identify most of the plants in our yard. Well, while I was potting my new purchases something caught my attention… Perhaps it was because we had been drinking mojitos the night before at happy hour…

That’s right, it’s a giant fricking bucket of mint. Really I’m amazed that it hasn’t somehow put roots down through the bottom of the bucket and started taking over the yard. Dave claims to have gotten rid of a mint jungle in his back yard back in the day by attacking it with a lawn mower… He couldn’t smell anything but mint for days afterwards. 🙂 Anyway, I trimmed out all of the dead stalks and we mulched around it and otherwise we’re just going to let it be. That’s a LOT of mojitos.