Hooray for herbs

Growing your own herbs always seems to make it onto the 'Top 10 beginners tips for sustainable living' tips  but sometimes I wonder whether chucking a few leaves on your plate is having any measurable impact. Its hardly achieving self sufficiency but when you do consider the cost every time you spend $3 on a bunch of herbs at the supermarket, combined with the footprint of transport, refrigeration, the little plastic sleeve and the inevitable waste that comes at the end it all does have the potential to add up.
On Saturday night I made the most of my herbs and roasted a chicken (free range of course) using Kylie Kwong's 'Radical Roast Chicken' recipe. The recipe combines a stuffing of fresh herbs- tarragon (plus I add thyme for some extra flavour)- and tops off the chicken with torn bay leaves, crushed garlic and a spring or two of rosemary. All of these picked freshly from the garden. Unfortunately my visit to the tarragon pot seemed to confirm suspicions that something was up- recently I have found bits and pieces wilted and broken. At first I though not enough water and then too much- I wondered if the girls had been involved or if it was other birds. Despite covering up the pot to protect the last few stems this is what I came back to yesterday........

I am now convinced its smaller critters at work....... I have come to the conclusion that growing things in pots needs to follow the same theory as garden with regular 'crop rotation' to minimize pests taking control. So I am planning to re-pot this baby  with some new soil on the weekend. I will give the dirt to the girls to poke around in, and give it break from growing.