My Patio Half Wall and Urban Herb Garden

I have some disheartening news. As you can probably surmise from the title of this post, I’ve lost my darling Basil plant. I sincerely hope this theft was via animal or accident, but I’m skeptical about that idea.

Overall, my experience at my apartments have been nice, outside of the clogging sink, the noisy trash compactor, and the occasional fire alarm pulling prank. The apartment has offered my boyfriend and I a comfortable and clean gated community to live in, with ample parking and access to all of Southern California – not to mention a short commute to work.

About a month and a half ago, I decided that I was tired of buying fresh herbs from the grocery store. They always went bad before I could use them all and I would end up tossing them out and buying more when I needed some, just to toss most of it out again. I felt so wasteful. So, I decided to take on a project. I wanted to plant my own little urban herb garden.

Given that my apartment doesn’t offer any yard area, in order to plant my herb garden, I needed to pot my plants and set them on my patio half wall, which separates my apartment patio from the complex’s driveway. Since planting the seeds, I’ve come out to visit and tend to the plants each morning and evening. As the plants adjust to their homes and I try to make a green thumb out of my clumsy ones, I’ve adjusted their orientation, changed up their watering regimen, altered dirt ratios on my late bloomers, made individual changes based on the preferences of each herb, etc. I’ve gotten so much joy from watching them grow and have gotten so excited to see the fruits (or herbs) of my labors.

My basil had a hard time starting up, but there was one stalk that really triumphed. I was so excited for it and proud of my plant’s shaky beginning. I wish I had a picture here for you all to see it, but it looked essentially like this one, which I found off google.

Yesterday, I came to check on my plants after work. Lo and behold, my basil plant was chopped away, leaving none of its leaves to help it grow back. What’s more disheartening is that my boyfriend and I found cigarette butts and the smell of cigarette smoke near the plants. In this, I have a hard time believing that an animal might have come and eaten its fill – but rather I am left much more perturbed that someone probably was a butt and violated the privacy of my apartment as well as murdered my poor plant!

After an evening filled with some tears and discussion about how I was going to flip a bit** and go crazy with my patio security, installing cameras, electric wiring, and more (all things I’m sure aren’t allowed at the complex), I was feeling a bit better and concluded that it’s probably best for me to just get a basil plant and repot it.

“But what if the plant stealer returns?” I asked myself. I consulted the internet today for other peoples’ plant thievery stories, hoping to find a community that might not laugh at how reactive I’m being in response. I didn’t realize it, but there are seriously people out there to just mess with other people’s plants, just cause! What terrible people! They suck! – This was precisely the ideology of one post I loved, by Gayla Trail’s “You Grow Girl” blog. (http://yougrowgirl.com/stealing-plants-you-suck/)

From the post I was about to find this jewel of a sign to hang:

Do you need to rant about your plant? Please feel free to comment any info about your plant thief stories or just anything plant related. I hoping my sign will be a deterrent, but I’ll keep you updated regardless.

Plant Theft at My Apartment