[Sca-cooks] herbs for hanging baskets?

[Stefan li Rous]

I asked about possible herbs for some hanging baskets and Martha 
mentioned:
> Aren't there some basils and/or oreganos that grow nice and bushy?
Do these grow just up and out? Or will they grow up and then droop over 
the sides of the pot? I guess the first might still work, but I might 
want to lower the baskets some since right now most people are going to 
be looking up at the pots, which means if the plants don't grow down, 
they may not be easily seen. That's why the Rosemary went into the 
planter and not the hanging basket.

Basil apparently comes in different varieties. Is there a particular 
one I should use if I want to stick with period herbs?

Then Christianna commented:
> How about a variety of thyme, somethine creeping that would hang over 
> the
> edges.  They have small leaves, so should look good, although you may 
> want
> to plant several plants in a 14-inch basket.
Yes, I actually bought two of the peppermint plants and put them in the 
same planter.

This and the Rosemary ended up on the east side since I saw that the 
west side is shaded by a large tree.

> You could even go with a couple
> of varieties, like lemon thyme and a dwarf creeping variety.
If I mix different varieties of thyme in the same pot am I going to 
have a problem with them cross-pollinating like I've heard mention is a 
problem with mints? Again, which variety of thyme is going to be the 
most period?
> Rosemary likes good drainage, make sure your box can provide that,
> adding lots of sand helps.
Okay. The planters are about knee high and it may be earth all the way 
down. I will have to check. The soil in them is not a loam, I think. 
Fairly loose but not sand.
> Hot tub and herbs on a sunny southern porch, gee Stefan, we may have to
> make a field trip from the rock over to your house someday soon.
Sure. So far, although we've usually warmed up the hot tub, none of the 
relatives have decided to partake while they were over on family 
dinners and such. :-( So, so far Alina and I have been the only ones 
who have used it since we moved in. We are planning to have a good old 
SCA revel over here in the future when there is an opening in the local 
SCA schedule.
> How does your wife feel about visitors that will cook?
> :)
Alina said that would be wonderful. However her idea of what is 
acceptable as food is a bit more constrained than mine. She didn't seem 
to like the idea of cooking a whole pig, which I mentioned earlier 
today. :-(

I also need to finish assembling the smoker so I can try some of the 
meat smoking that has been discussed here previously. We did however 
buy one of the wooden swings for the front porch this afternoon. Now 
I've just got to figure out how to hang it. I hope there are beams in 
the right places :-}

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****