Dill Disaster

[Scruffy Duffy]

Hi there,

can anyone tell me why my garden centre bought pre-grown dill has completely died a death?

It was in good nick when we got it a couple of weeks ago, it went into a raised bed full of compost and seemed to be at the right depth.

However, it's not particularly sheltered as we have spaced the herbs out to give them room to grow, and there have been a couple of hail showers and plenty of rain. Could this have been the problem?

I've put some seeds either side of the plant in the hope that they'll replace it, but some advice for the future would be really appreciated.

Many thanks

Scruffy

[sewer rat]

When you bought the dill, was it pot-bound ? Could be that it's root system never had a chance to take in water and nutrients from the surrounding soil.
Another possibility is that the plant had not been hardened off, and the shock of moving it from a protected environment into the big bad world was too much for it.
I have 90 dill plants in pots hardening off just now, and don't seem to have any problems, though a couple were a bit sorry after their first trip outdoors.

[Scruffy Duffy]

Hi Sewer Rat,

thanks for the suggestions. I don;t remember exactly, but I guess it could have been pot bound. I have vague recollections of trying to tease the roots.

I bought it from our garden centre, and they had been outside for quite some time so I'll have to assume that they were all sufficiently hardened off.

Well, by this evening, the whole thing has completely withered, and pretty much disintegrated, so I'll have to hope the seeds take.

thanks for your help.

Scruffy

[Earthbabe]

That's a shame Scruffy Duffy. SR's suggestions sound good. Many herbs don't like too many nutrients once they get going, but compost should have been ok unless it was particularly rich.

If however things don't get going I could send you some Bronze Fennel seed. (I saved rather a lot last year) This has pretty much the same flavour but is a perennial rather than an annual and as the name suggests a pretty dark greeny bronzy colour. My one withstood the frozen ground we had down here the winter before last to pop up again. It was so mild last winter that it never fully died back. LOL!