Eco Pod Herb Pots For Indoor Gardening

eco pod herb pot

We decided last year to give up our allotment, because,… life, but I do really like having fresh herbs around and I’d like to keep growing a few things, as best I can in the space I have. We are blessed in our house to have large Georgian windows which get a lot of beautiful sunlight (okay, daylight, sun even beautiful windows can’t promise!) but the windowsills are low, so anything we put on it, ends up falling off or being knocked about in the general melee of daily life. So, when I spotted these gorgeous Eco Pod herb pots, they were the answer to a question I didn’t even know I had yet. eco pod herb pot

The Eco Pod Self Watering Herb Pots come as a set of two, and are three-part, egg-shaped little gadgets of wonder. Part one is the bracket which is attached to the wall by removable sticky tabs. You need to attach the double sided tabs to a clean surface, and then attach the bracket. Leave it overnight so that it can properly ‘set’. eco pod herb pot

I didn’t want to wait for seeds, so I bought some potted herbs from my local supermarket – basil and parsley in this instance. If you just tear them apart, I’ve found, they don’t tend to live very long, (I think the roots are too damaged). However, if you remove the herbs from their pots, and put them in a bowl of water for a day or two it all comes apart much easier and there’s less damage, and the herbs seem to survive better. The herbs can soak while the wall sticker is resting. eco pod herb pot

The Eco Pod herb pot itself is made up of two parts – the top bit is where the soil and plant go, and the bottom bit is where the water goes. The water will drip from the top to the bottom through a sponge-like filter and then, I suppose, get soaked back up it over time. So you water the top, it runs through, and then comes back up again as needed. It’s all very simple and yet very clever.

The two parts are held together by magnets, which so far, is still all holding together well. eco pod herb pot

Learn from my experience – put it all together and plug it into the wall bracket as one piece otherwise you have muddy water running down the wall! But that little mishap aside, it doesn’t seem to leak, so long as you top the water up with care.

I intend to get a few more pots to add extra herbs. They are small pots, so these are for the kind of herbs you would use on occasion, rather than for, say, pesto where you’d use the whole pot! I think it would be smart, too, to pop some seeds into the pot every few weeks so that you have constant new growth. I haven’t tried it that way yet, but I’ll let you know if it works. Even if I have to replace the herb pots every now and then, the herbs last longer this way, and there’s always fresh herbs for my cooking. Love, love, love it – and I think it looks gorgeous too.

 

How To Get Rid of Aphids

How to get rid of aphids

Along with my allotment, I am also growing a number of salad greens such as rocket and spinach and kale on two windowsills in my living room. One of the windowsills has pots with spinach and kale, and for some or other reason, the plants on this windowsill are over run by aphids! The other windowsill is fine, but this one – over run. Seriously – stick your hand into one of the pots and shake the plant around a little and your hand comes out covered in the little green bugs. It’s rather gross!

I tried to go organic, and spent some time every day manually going through every leaf on every plant pulling them off, but actually, life is too short!How to get rid of aphids

So yesterday I decided I needed to go big or give up. It was time to get rid of aphids!

I mixed three drops of Thieves oil with three drops of Peppermint oil and a small squirt of dish washing soap into a spray bottle with two cups of water and swirled it around, then sprayed it  liberally onto all the leaves – top and bottom, to get the eggs too – and in the crevices of the stems. I’ll have to make sure to wash everything properly before eating to get the dishwashing soap off, but it does work, for whatever reason!

By morning there wasn’t any movement on the plants – they’re all dead. Getting the plants cleared is a bit of a manoeuvring, but they just blow off, really. New eggs began to hatch, so I’ve had to spray again, but same story – they’re just dropping off.

If you don’t want to use dish soap, you can go without it, using just the essential oils, but you may need to do two or three sprays.

Hopefully now I’ve been able to get rid of aphids the plants will have a better chance to grow and flourish and I’ll get to eat some of the fruits of my labour!