Sandy's Herb Garden.......

My new herbs are on the left....then there is Mr Wonderful's lucky bamboo, a little Jade plant and a Sego palm I am trying to keep alive. The BIG Jade plant the dogs have eaten and chewed on is too sad looking for the picture! I am hoping it looks normal by the time my master gardener mother arrives in October!

Some very sad news: Chewie's tortoise, Scooby Do passed away this past week. He lived for the past 8 years or so in a 50 gallon (dry) aquarium by a sunny window in our kitchen. Since they are supposed to live for 100-150 years, we will not be getting another tortoise of any kind. Chewie found the tortoise outside his great grandmother's house when he was just a little 2-3 year old child. Scooby's first home was a pint sized cottage cheese container. Scooby was supposed to eat a varied diet of fruits and vegetables. Sorry to say, he would only eat lettuce. I pried his mouth open once and put a small piece of strawberry in there--can say, tortoises can spit as he launched that piece of strawberry WAY across his home. He felt the same way about grapes, bananas, blueberries, and raspberries. When he was small, Danielle fashioned a little house for him out of a shoe box. As he grew, she had to make a large opening on one side. He was half dollar sized when Chewie found him and was the size of a man's palm when he died. Scooby's now unused aquarium is out in the back shed. Before Scooby lived on the shelf in the kitchen, our geriatric hamster lived in a smaller aquarium. Before any other animals/reptiles could arrive, I dusted off a couple of my plants, transplanted a little sweet basil plant that I got from my Sewing for Baby friend, Collen Molzchak. I bought a parsley plant from Home Depot and planted nearly microscopic oregano seeds from an on sale kit I bought for $2.95 (originally $10!) from Joanne's Fabric store. We will see how long they last...I am a bit hard on my plants. I have two extra pots in case I come across any other herbs that want to live a rather hazardous life....as my plants.

We have plant/tree eating gophers in the back yard, so no use trying a garden. I even had to have Stephanie spray pruning spray over a hole in the side of our AZ Ash tree, and put a small rabbit proof fence around it. Not only do we have gophers, we now have a plethora of wild rabbits roaming the neighborhood. Until they started digesting the bark on my tree, I thought they were cute.....not so now! Anyway, here is a picture of my new herbs....in my kitchen window. I haven't used any fresh herbs in any recipes in a long time. We shall see if they last long enough for me to get used to having them! For now, I am happy to just be a "kitchen shelf" herb farmer.