My little herb garden

This nonya mommy is planting her little herb garden in her HDB flat.

It all began when a little bawang merah (shallot) that were meant for rempah (to be pounded in the pestle and motar into a paste for cooking) sprouted.

That little green shoot meant the bulb wouldn't taste good, so I found a tiny container, put in some tissue paper, nestled the bulb in it and watered it to let it grow.

It thrived. We could use the spring onions to add greens to our diet, I thought.

Then more little onions sprouted to escape the motar. Soon I was out of containers, but we had a little chive farm and the harvest did spice up our meals. My kids named each pet onion. Gary, Mary, Harry, Sally, and...   I can't remember the rest.

I explained that harvesting the chives was like giving them haircuts.

Window shopping at Jasons, I chanced upon potted herbs that looked sad in the refrigerator. "Why not?" I thought, and bought five.

Fresh leaves picked from our herb garden made a real difference to the food. We're so used to seasoning our food with herbs that when we eat out,  the kids complain about the msg effect.

My dill didn't fare well initially. Its leaves yellowed the next day, so I pruned off almost half of it and used that to make a chicken tonic soup.

A simple chicken soup made with chicken, garlic, onions,  carrots and freshly harvested dill tasted great and has a tonic effect. My family said it was like Brands essence of chicken.

I replanted little dill in a much larger pot to give it room to grow. Google calls it a weed and I hope it spreads like one as we could use a lot more dill. Dill's under a protection order now. We can harvest the others but not Dill.

The others looked so sad in their tiny pots so I have been repotting them, one by one. Waiting for the nursery to stock up on more pitting mix so I can buy more to upgrade the remaining herbs to their new homes.

Meanwhile, I bought more potted herbsband started planting butter lettuce seeds with the hopes of harvesting fresh organic veggies too.

Let's see how it goes.