The tale of the cursed fish tank

– Everything is an Adventure: Column by Julia Wolf –

In early spring, I started a small herb garden in my house, with the hopes it would start producing before the garden produce hits. It is slowly becoming apparent, that those hopes are going to be dashed.

To recap, I had goldfish and, despite my best efforts, I could not keep them alive. I tried extra filters. I tried buying water. I tried extra tank treatments, test strips to attempt to identify the problem and different fish food. I even hauled water from my parents’ house once, since they have a bunch of old, large goldfish, thriving at their house. Nothing worked.

After watching multiple rounds of fish die, I decided that fish are not for me. I didn’t want a fish tank sitting around, taking up space, for nothing, so I looked into how to convert it into an herb garden.

Once I got the fish tank washed up, it was a fairly simple project to set up. I put in some pea rocks for drainage, which I layered over with a soil mixture.

Then, I planted my seeds. I started with some lemon balm, which I planned to use for tea, along with chives and spinach. Yes, I am aware spinach is not an herb, but I planned to harvest the “baby spinach” for smoothies and salads, never letting the plants get big.

I was even gifted a grow light for my birthday, to put over the tank, to get the seeds off to a good start.

Within 10 days of planting, I noticed there was a problem. The seed packets said seedlings should pop up by that time, but there were not. Well, I gave them another week to sprout. Still nothing.

Then, I tried covering the tank with some plastic wrap, to keep the moisture in. About a week after that, the spinach came up. The chives came soon after. Good, I thought. It’s finally growing.

That was a false sense of security. I tried replanting the lemon balm, but that was clearly not going to do anything. As soon as the spinach started to look cramped with the plastic cover, I took off the plastic and growth stopped. The chives grew a little bit more after that, but seemed to top out at a whopping three inches tall.

At one point, my parents were visiting and my dad commented that stuff really grew since the last time he was over, a week earlier. I got excited for a second, thinking I just didn’t notice the growth, because I see the plants multiple times a day. Then, I realized he was joking. It’s hilarious,

(See Page 5 for location) but also, I wanted them to grow.

Then, my dad called my fish tank cursed. That would be funnier, if it wasn’t so true.

I even planted some pansies from May Day, in place of the lemon balm and they don’t look so hot anymore, either. Meanwhile, my co-worker has her pansies planted in a sour cream container on her desk and they are thriving. Yep. My fish tank is cursed.

The bright side to all of this, is I wasn’t relying on those plants to make it through the apocalypse or anything. I just wanted to be a cool person with an herb garden. Clearly, neither me, nor my fish tank, are cool enough for herbs.