Baby Basil

A few months ago I picked up some "living" herbs from the grocery store, basil and mint, for a recipe that week. Well, I got the crazy idea to plant what I didn't use, and wouldn't ya know, they kept living! Actually, the first time I bought the basil (hydroponically grown basil) I planted it in soil (because I know nothing about gardening) and it died, of course. Not such an "of course" at the time. But the second time I bought it I put it in water (after a recommendation by the Whole Foods cashier, who obviously has better reasoning skills than me), and it lived! Go figure. So the herbs in my windowsill got me all excited to try to grow my own. An intimidating experiment, because as you remember, I know nothing about gardening. So I went to Home Depot and picked up some organic seeds ("Tasha, aren't all seeds organic?" was the quesion of the day. And "No, they're not," was the firm answer, because "all seeds come from some plant that was growing somewhere in some kind of soil"). Cilantro and Basil came home with me that day, along with a bright yellow home for the basil and a cheerful green home for the cilantro. I read the packet's instructions with great care and attention (yes, I'm learning how to garden off the back of a seed packet), and planted my little seeds a little more than a quarter inch below the soil.


Then... I waited. And waited. And waited some more. 5 days, 7 days, 9 days and nothing. I felt like a second grader watching a homemade earth science project. But then, one glorious morning, I clumsily stumbled down the stairs (it was early), peeked over the rim of the yellow pot, and saw (to my utter disbelief) tiny little baby basil sprouts popping up out of the soil! no WAY!! eeee! So exciting!


And they don't tell you this in those fancy pants gardening classes (or on the back of the seed packet), but the little guys keep growing! Soon I will have two basil plants up in that window. The unfortunate part of this story is that I have yet to see any hope for the cilantro. Almost two weeks and no signs of life. But one out of two isn't bad!