The Tragedy of the kerbs (kitchen herbs, grown hydroponically) is still a mystery. But we've taken radical steps. We cut all the dead stuff away from the blighted herbs in the front row--oregano, marjoram, thyme--and then also did a severe pruning on the the healthy herbs in the back--basil, parsley, sage, chives--so that we could lower the light stalk and bring UV closer to the poor sad front row things on life support. Fingers crossed:
At the end of last summer, we harvested all our perbs (pot herbs, on the back deck) and just left the pots outside. And today, ta-da! The chives are growing strong. The sage has definitely over-wintered, and the thyme, I'm pretty sure, is about to burst forth:
Which reminds me of a scene I just wrote in Hild, in which a pregnant woman says: there's always hope. Sadly for her, she dies.
Moral of the story: real life is better than fiction.