When easy is not so easy

Despite my better judgment, I have decided to try growing herbs in containers outdoors. According to research I have conducted on the subject, growing herbs is by all accounts very easy, judging by photos and videos of people who are living among jungles of flourishing herbs because it is just all so easy.

Unfortunately, their definition of "very easy" seems vastly different from mine.

For example, when planting herbs in pots, you must be sure to use potting mix, NOT potting soil, which despite their similarity in name are not the same. Potting soil is much too dense and will basically strangle your plants. I move that to help avoid confusion between the two, some distinct name be given to potting soil, perhaps Dense Stuff to Help Strangle Plant Roots.

Also, depending on the type of herb, you should either 1) mix the potting mix or 2) NOT mix the potting mix with a) fertilizer, b) compost, c) polymer crystals, d) lime, e) kelp meal, or f) Honey-Nut Cheerios. Easy peasy!

For the best results, according to those who know, you should really mix up your own concoction of soil. There are roughly 16 different ingredients needed to put it together yourself, most of which end in "um" or "ite" and sound like dreaded 17th-century diseases, like gypsum, sphagnum, perlite, and vermiculite. (Indeed, these agents are known to cause massive amounts of dirt to cling to your clothes and person.) The exact combination of these 16 ingredients will vary according to the herb, so I calculate that there are approximately 10 to the 78th power different combinations of soil components one could put together.

But easy peasy!

Accordingly, MY plan was to get some basil, lemon thyme, chives, and approved potting mix, then dump it all into some cute pots and put out a sign reading, "Please adopt me."

No, not really. The sign would say, "Really, she's not trying to kill us. At least we don't think so."

But when I went to the store to acquire all the necessary paraphernalia, I found that the weather was not exactly conducive to planting anything. Indeed, while in the very act of admiring the cute basil and lemon thyme plants at Trader Joe's, I was beset by a rain that with very little encouragement could become snow, and did so very briefly. Several Trader Joe's employees gleefully snapped photos of each other standing in the rain-snow.

I looked at the basil, the lemon thyme, and all the little pots of other herbs and sighed. Easy schmeasy, mmm hmm. I might have known. I promised the plants I would be back another day when it was warmer, like maybe in July, and went home to make that sign. At least THAT would be easy.