Kitchen Plants - Mint and Parsley
Because this site is all about growing your own food in an urban environment I wanted to plant a couple of plants in pots inside to show that it can be done.
I was also doing this on the cheap with plants bought from the supermarket in those horrible tiny pots. It wasn’t until I unpacked them and transplanted them that I worked out what they had done and I knew it was going to be a struggle.They’ve packed about ten or so plants into a square inch and just had them sitting in water. Even though it says you can replant them on the packaging they are really designed just to be some fresh herbs cut up. I bought four plants that day and it would appear that I’m batting with a 50% average now. Because two of them have completely died out as their roots were too badly damaged and under developed.
The two plants that I picked for the kitchen were Mint and Parsley. Two herbs that I’ve had some success with in the past.
So I’m unwrapping the mint and notice that it is one fairly established plant with quite a bit of leaf damage thanks to sitting in water for a prolonged time. Also thanks to the tiny little pot and virtually no soil the plant is very root bound (which means that the roots had no where to go and just kept growing entangled. Think about what it would be like if you wore shoes two sizes too small ALL the time!).
Well that’s fine because we’ll fix this right now for the small mint bush and get it some breathing room. I bought a couple of smallish pots that were also on sale (man am I getting bargains this week!) that should look nice on the kitchen table underneath the window.
Transplant the mint and start pulling away the rotting leaves and notice a giant caterpillar. Well that’s not going to help anyone. Flick it out the window. And now that the plant’s in the pot I can take a closer look at it and notice that stalks have been cut away.
Just to show how resilient mint can be one of the stalks is growing back with vengence not three days later!
Now the parsley on the other hand always had me wary. The leaves were too light and delicate and it was really packed into that little pot. Certainly not as much water damage as the mint of the mizuna but definitely enough there to warrant concern. In my heart I think I knew that it wouldn’t survive the transplant and three days later my suspicions have been confirmed as the last of the parsley died.
I don’t wish to turn anyone off buying those seedlings but I recommend getting the healthy one plant variety as opposed to bunched together. I might try the parsley from scratch the next time.
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