Herbal Update - Week 8

It is Week 8 of my herbs and Thornless Blackberry actually staying alive.  I feel like I should throw them a party or something.  Invite other people's plants over and make teensy-planty party hats.  Serve Miracle Gro-infused cocktails.

Or not.

Anyway, Mojito Mint is doing really well.  I don't even think this picture (below) does it justice.  I haven't been pruning it to make it grow out and bushy because I need it to get a wee bit taller first (so it can hang further out over the planter's edge).  I think my neighbor is a garden sprite who comes over and takes care of my plants.  I've seen his garden and I've seen what I usually do and have decided that this is the only thing that makes sense...but it doesn't seem like he could scale up to our second floor deck very easily.  Yup, must be a sprite.  Or maybe some kind of pixie.

Ah Rosemary, I don't even know why I bother pretending I'm caring for you.  You're going to be just fine.  ...Wait a minute...why are you bending like that?

I removed all the leaves from Basil that had any kind of brown on them so that nutrients wouldn't get sucked up by the ones who weren't going to make it anyway.  And it's not looking so bad now!  I also got direction on how to properly remove the flowers from my Basil plant on Chow.com's YouTube channel.

And look at the Thornless Blackberry.  Remember when I said I thought it was dead and all I'd really done was bury a stick in the ground?  It must have heard me.  It's certainly doing an excellent job of proving me wrong.  I'm going to need a better trellis system by the end of summer.  We may even have a berry or two.

I've been trying to work up the courage to go over to one of my neighbors' and ask him, no beg him, to let me take pictures of his front yard and back patio.  They're just so lovely.  And his deck is covered with herbs.  I want him to make me his apprentice and teach me everything he knows.

His pixie apprentice.