Living for Disco

I have planted things. Yes, indeed.

It is extremely difficult, and expensive, to buy fresh herbs here. Normally you are so grateful to find a little plastic packet of basil, or some such, that you snatch it off the hook in the manner of a sneak thief, and scuttle away before someone else can make off with it. Then, when you get them home, you find that they have gone black, or have been eaten by something, or that they are not herbs at all. So, on his extended trip to the UK over Christmas, my bloke bought some herby seeds and brought them back all the way to Namibia for me to plant.

I don’t have green fingers. I never have. I normally manage to kill anything green that comes under my care within a few short hours. I’m sure that I must be adopted, because both of my parents did/do wonders in the garden, and I was brought up with horticultural terms being drip fed into my waiting ears. Despite this, I spent years thinking that Hebe was a chain of hairdressing salons, while unthinkingly becoming widely known as the Death of Plants.

So I’m very excited about my herbs. I’m hoping that this time I will manage to actually grow something. I have images of bushy basil plants the size of small children, and coriander so abundant that I will have to construct a new porch just to house it. Fat, shiny fruits will drip from the chilli trees that I have grown in record time, and I will have enough mint to sell to Colgate for a tasty profit, and still be able to pickle my liver with unlimited mojitos for the rest of my life.

So, on Sunday I sat and sifted a pile of soil, and under the watchful eyes of the plant expert that is my beloved I sprinkled some little seeds into corners and tenderly covered them up. Then I went outside every half hour to check on them, in case they were being eaten by birds, or had decided to start growing, or something.

I’m not sure how long I’ll have to wait for them to sprout, considering the warm climate, and the amount of rain that we’re getting. I’m hoping something will have happened by this evening, or I’ll start to worry*.

*I came out this morning, and one of the coriander seeds had become exposed. This is a disaster. I hope they are planted deep enough. This is an especial worry with the mint, because the seeds are microscopic and the same colour as the soil. I am becoming distressed.