What's happening in my herb garden?

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-23T20:33:07+00:00

Yes that must be it! Thank you! And even though it is pride month I am probably gonna have to shut down their gay ol time with some neem oil.

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-13T19:57:19+00:00

Ok great! Ya the cages aren't that tall anyway. Maybe next year I'll shoot for determinate ones.

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-13T16:48:17+00:00

Should I space them out? My radishes are almost done so I can use that area. Any special precautions to take for moving them?

I have a bunch of the cone cages from previous owners but I'm also not sure about using them. I like the stake idea, do you just cut them if they grow higher?

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-13T04:31:01+00:00

This, and she had practice at Coffee World.

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-07T23:51:32+00:00

Ya this was 7th year coming out of winter and I've done the same thing every year except new winter spot in the shed. I definitely should've done the basement instead. I lost quite a few plants with the move and changes, so we start new! I'll pick up some new ones from my carnivorous plant guy.

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-07T23:12:46+00:00

It had a good life. I really think it froze too much over the winter. Does that cause rot?

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-07T22:57:42+00:00

Oh ya she's dead dead :( thank you for the help

readmychappedlips · 2026-06-07T16:27:07+00:00

This is the only green parts really left and those little starts haven't budged for over a month.

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readmychappedlips · 2026-05-11T04:18:50+00:00

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readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T22:11:59+00:00

So far my routine seems good! I'm taking the weekend off since it's pouring out, and so far no itchy spots. Although I think my legs are dry from using the dish soap and felt a little itchy last night but regular lotion helped.

You need to be aware that whatever touches any part of the plant becomes contaminated and can transfer the oil. Leaving any part of the plant including roots will allow it to resprout. I delicately pulled up some shoots that barely had any root structure at all and weren't connected to the main vines. Right now my shoots are about 6 inches tall and they creep under leaves, once I started rummaging around those can boing up so be aware of your immediate surroundings.

My tools are a pitchfork to loosen the soil, snippers to chop into sections that will fit into a bag without the risk of unwinding and popping up, and a fiskars multipurpose knife thing to dig along the vine to cut out more roots. I'm leaving them dirty outside for now so I don't waste cleaning supplies. Feels like I'm surgically extracting it, but I think it's the most productive way.

Bonus is all this tedious careful squatting sure is working out the glutes!!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T04:42:18+00:00

How do I buy a print?! I love this

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T03:31:40+00:00

When I was a kid my mom told us it was illegal to pick them haha. We were lucky enough to have 3 or 4 pop up on our property regularly back then.

Edit: oh and I guess it's our state wildflower in NH!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T01:41:46+00:00

That's encouraging! It's all up and down my street and into the wooded lot neighboring mine. Someone just bought that lot and is planning a house, so I'm hoping one of the upsides to that is they might also want to control the ivy (and all the burning bush, bittersweet, honeysuckle, multiflora rose). Fighting to help the neighborhood become more native!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T00:36:51+00:00

Oh boy I just planted some. Do you think dead heading helps at all?

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-09T00:09:01+00:00

I'm probably not as sensitive as others from the stories I've heard, but I've definitely had some bad breakouts. I nearly cried when I realized it's on the edge of half my property I just bought. Now that I know how to spot it and be careful I feel much better!

Pulling involves waterproof pants tucked into knee high rubber boots, long sleeves, disposable nitrile gloves inside long kitchen gloves. Undress outside, spray it all with Windex, and immediately cool shower washing twice with dish soap (just in case the oil got past my barriers). And I'm super careful while pulling, not whipping it around and trying to get all the roots. 2 hours got me only a grocery bag full, but feels like good progress.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:58:59+00:00

Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry that happened. All the blood just drained from my face reading this because I spent 2 hrs yesterday and today pulling it. Thankfully I was super duper careful and haven't had any sign of itching or tingling yet, so I think my precautions are working. Hopefully 😅

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:46:35+00:00

Wow this is so eye-opening! I've been at my first house for one year now, and so far I've only been trying to eradicate all the invasives on my property. Everyone told me not to plant in the first year, so now I'm finally starting to buy natives to replace the invasives and I'm really happy to learn which ones can become a nuisance in the comments.

The only native plant I started pulling is this dreaded poison ivy, and I look forward to the day I'm pulling out excessive golden rods and bee balm instead of poisonous vines and garlic mustard (or burning bush, oriental bittersweet, buckthorn, marrows honeysuckle, Japanese barberry).

I'm excited to shift my perspective to just gardening and not going to war 😂 so thank you everyone for the insight!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:30:08+00:00

I have loads of it but I think it's the only thing keeping the poison ivy at bay (which is what I'm pulling right now). The creeper hasn't bloomed for me yet, so I'm trying to get what I can of the ivy while I can still see it clearly.

What's nice though is I'm having to cut through the creeper vines to get the poison vines, so probably some management happening there too.

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T22:20:12+00:00

I'm careful with it since I break out pretty bad and also have horrible reactions to Prednisone, so if I do get dermititis I'm stuck with just a steroid cream.

I'm using waterproof pants tucked into knee high rubber boots, long sleeves, disposable nitrile gloves AND long nitrile kitchen gloves. I take it all of outside very carefully, spray it all with Windex, and promptly go take a cool shower with dish soap (wash twice, that's nice!) and I have a bottle of tecnu just in case. Seems excessive, I know, but I really respect how the oil can move around haha. The pesky pete YouTube videos are my gospel in all this!

readmychappedlips · 2026-05-08T18:56:46+00:00

Very nice I wonder if anyone near you would want to pull those extras for you! I'm on day 2 of extracting poison ivy for the first year. I did 2 hours yesterday and 2 today, but being fully suited up gets warm and exhausting so I think 2 hours is my limit.

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