Jeff,

It's a good question, and the answer is simple.

Oregano grows best in cool, dry and somewhat poor soil and prefers mild temperatures. So, even though you have beautiful, rich, fertile soil that encourages your other plants to grow like mad, that is not what oregano likes.

I'd buy a bag of cactus soil and grow the oregano in a container with the cactus soil. Water enough to keep it alive and growing, but no more than that. It should respond by growing pretty well. You might want to mulch with a thin layer of pebbles, but NOT with pine bark or anything that would keep the soil surface too wet.

Good luck,

Dawn

Ah, very cool.

See, I'd figured that the plant was Mediterranean, so it must like sun and good soil. But I guess I need to neglect the little bugger instead.

I have some birthday money left over, so I think I'll do what I've been meaning to do for a while -- get some potting soil and containers and plant some more herbs in those.

I have lots of "volunteer" seedlings in my bed, and if I allowed them all to grow to their full height, things would become pretty crowded.

All told, I have seen seedlings of: echinacea, chamomile, basil, tomato and some new strawberry and mint as well.

While we're on the subject of containers, I planted some aloe last week in a pot with normal garden soil. Would the aloe do better in poorer soil, like the prepackaged kind meant for cacti?

My Mom loves succulents, and has some experience growing them. She said normal potting soil works fine for them, but I just wanted to double-check.

Also, with those tomato seedlings, I think they are a beefsteak variety from last year. Some are about half a foot high. If I allow these to grow up now, will this help me extend my tomato harvesting season? Maybe even into the early fall?

I agree with your Mom. I've always grown succulents in regular potting soil too, so I think yours would be fine. The key with succulents is that good drainage is a must, and overwatering is deadly.

As for the tomato seedlings, yes, yes, yes! Let them grow for late summer to fall tomatoes. I am getting ready to start my fall tomato seeds sometime in the next couple of days, but I'll write about that in another thread. : )

Ah, so that's why my oregano is thiving! I have really poor soil in the corner of my yard nearest my house. The folks who had our house before us had a problem with water accumulating under the house, which they dealt with by piling more dirt around the foundation. Worse. In removing the nearly 12" of soil they had trucked in (which went into my raised beds that I was starting at the time), I guess I got down to the really yucky stuff, which is mostly clay. I am slowly improving the soil in that area, but so many other projects cry louder and there are only so many hours in the day.

I might add, though, that oregano is a member of the mint family, isn't it Dawn? And that might explain also why mine likes it so much where it is because it only gets sun until about 2:00. I haven't had good luck growing mint in full sun, but it grows under the edges of my porch like crazy!

Ilene,

I bet the poor soil is perfect for oregano (and its' relatives) and I cannot imagine that the people who owned your house before it became "your house" thought that adding more soil would correct a drainage situation.

And, yep, it is a member of the mint family (as are many other plants that I love). Every plant I've ever grown that's related to mint all seem to best on morning sun and shade in the hottest part of the day.

Underneath our back porch, which is a westward-facing 15' x 15' screened-in porch with a pier and beam foundation, we have hollyhocks and grapevines that grow on the edges, just under the porch but creeping out towards the sun. It is hysterical. They are too far up under the porch to dig out, and I don't have the heart to spray them with Round-up. They hang on and survive but don't do much otherwise.

Dawn

Jeff - Thanks for asking the question because my oregano isn't big either. I remember it being a bush in Greece so had wondered if I had a different varity. Guess what I had was a different variety of gardener. LOL

Ilene and Dawn - It is crazy what people think they can do by piling up dirt. The previous owner of our house had new lateral lines put in, then had loads and loads of dirt brought in and put on top of them because she thought they needed to be deep. Early on we put in a complete new septic system from the plumbing down and corrected all of their earlier mistakes, but we can't correct the ground water. Some area are built up higher than the buildings so I am still trying to redirect the flow of water in various places. If that isn't bad enough the road is built a little higher than some of the land so water that needs to cross the road cannot. It is only a block or so to the lake which is about 8 or 10 feet lower that my yard but the obstacles need to be cleared away. The entire neighborhood needs a better drainage system. Just one more thing to do, and other things are crying louder at my house too Ilene.

Carol,

Its' always something, and lately I am "wimping out" and coming inside far more than I should, to cool off and get out of the heat. Our temps aren't so bad, only the low 90s most days, but our heat indexes are.....theyhave been as high as 105 degrees this week. Today's another ozone alert day, so I talked myself out of mowing and weedeating. Maybe I'll do some of the yard in a little while though.

Once it is this hot, I have a hard time staying "on task" and getting all the things on my "to do" list completed and checked off. Luckily, the veggie garden is about "done" and all I have to do now is maintain the weeding, etc. and harvest.....and keep an eye out for diseases and pests. The flower and shrub beds are in moderately good shape, and I hope to "get around" to giving them a little more attention next week.

Dawn

Last year my greek oregano was only about 4 inches tall. I mulched it over the winter, and much to my surprise, it came back and is about 12 to 18 inches tall now.

Dawn,

I was wondering how to clean the herbs. I remember last year I used an all natural vegetable cleanser, and then I even just tried rinsing the oregano and cilantro. The problem was that the leaves looked dark and water soaked. The oregano looked pretty much ruined. sheri

Sheri,

Were they particularly dusty or dirty? Of course you do have to wash them. I like to spray them with the hose (a light to medium mist), cut them, hold them under running water, and then bundle them with a rubber band and hang them upside down on my screened in porch to drip dry. I don't let them soak, and they do drip dry in no time in our summer heat. Some people spread them out and let them dry on paper towels, gently patting them dry with another paper towel. Or, you can put them in the salad spinner and give them a whirl to dry them off. Or, you can "speed dry" them by putting them on a food dehydrator rack and turning it on for a few minutes....just enough to dry the surface moisture off of them.

If you want to dry them to preserve for winter use, wash them briefly, hang them to drip dry, then hang them inside a paper bag in an area with good ventilation. The brown paper bag helps keep airborne dust, dirt and pollen off of them as they dry (and keeps insects away as well). Once they are good and dry, you can crumble them with your fingers and then put them in little spice jars or zip-lock bags.

Dawn