HiJenx

Minor Differences: Gardening and Herbs

Now, both the British and the Americans do garden. Both my and Chris’s fathers are avid gardeners, but what’s less common, especially among people of our generation and younger in the South East of Britain, is having outside space. As a result, this is the first time either of us have had access to outdoor gardening since we were teenagers (and of course, like most teenagers, we had no interest at the time).

In Brighton, our only possibility for growing plants was a tiny south facing windowsill in the kitchen that usually had a couple of basil plants and maybe an oregano plant. They didn’t fare very well as a general rule.

Due to the differences in access to the outdoors, the access to plants is different. In Britain, it’s assumed that a) your plant probably won’t get that much sun most of the year because, you know, British weather, and b) that you may not have access to a place to replant. As a result, your average British grocery store sells inexpensive potted herbs. The pot will be fairly disposable, but will work for the few weeks or months your plant may survive.

basils

Sainsburys Basil Plant

When we first arrived, we tried to do the same thing we did, which is buy herbs from the supermarket. This is not the way to do it here. It is expensive and you get a very small amount, usually either ready to be used (i.e. roots removed) or with a tiny clump of dirt and the assumption you have somewhere to plant it right away. Either way, it was a small smaller quantity than is readily available in a more lasting form in UK supermarkets. The types of herbs they were likely to have were also a bit different. We saw a lot of parsley and hardly any of the herbs intended mainly for Italian meals that we want to keep in the house.

I asked a few of my friends and they recommended Home Depot and similar stores. Basically, the same store where you buy a hammer or patio furniture is more likely to be the place to get herbs. Of course, the UK also has garden centers, but given we could just get little plants that were suited to our situation delivered by major grocery chains, we never used that options.

All of the herbs in Home Depot were big and lovely compared to their tiny US supermarket counterparts, but they also demanded potting or just came with a giant, permanent pot. We bought one healthy pre-potted oregano, as the very knowledgeable fellow at the shop told us it tends to take over like mint:

2016-02-13 11.11.33

As we have outdoor space, but no outdoor access to the ground since we are on the second floor, we got a box to put our basil and cilantro/coriander in:
2016-02-15 09.30.51

We shall see how well out little plants do as we are very inexperienced gardeners. Any tips are welcome.

Here’s the video of the planting:

 

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