Our Herb Spiral

Here is the finished herb spiral. I have placed a lavender on the top to attract bees and the spiral is planted with strawberries, parsley, coriander and sage. I am now planning on planting some thyme in the gaps of the actual wall as I have realised that would probably work and would expand the production space and provide more nectar for bees etc. I have spent about 14 hours making this at a total cost of $75 for the plants, compost and straw. I am really pleased with it and now just hope that it works! If you start from the bottom of the post you can see the steps that I took to end up here.

Then I added the straw and watered that in and then made pockets of compost and added the plants, watering it all in at the end. There were two lizards living in these pavers when they were a stack beside the fence so I am hoping that they will find their way to this, as well as other lizards.

 Then I added a layer of nasturtiums and comfrey leaves and under that is a layer of worm castings as I cleaned out the worm farm to use that too. Once again I watered the layer in the same way that each layer is watered in a no- dig garden.

 Some of the herb spiral demos I have watched on You Tube use all soil, and some use all straw, whilst others use a combination and layers. So I decided to add sand  first, then some wood, then cardboard and newspaper, watering between each layer.

 Because it is built on concrete I decided that I should have a layer of rubble in the bottom to assist drainage. I spent three hours smashing up broken pavers with a hammer to get a layer that I was happy with.

 Once I was getting down to the last few pavers I needed to make sure that there were going to be enough to make the centre higher and taper it down. It took a few readjustments but is almost finished here.

Once I had worked out my spiral, based on the size of the pavers and the shape that it needed to fit into, I started building it layer by layer. We have had a pile of pavers for a long time and as we do not want to put more pavers down this seemed like a good use of them. The concrete underneath is old and ugly so it will have to look better than that.

Splendid Sage

Our potted herb garden on the front porch is going well, and whilst the Sage plant looked rather sad during winter time, it is bursting back to life now.

Doing our bit for Sustainable September

Our tiny Almond tree has about nine flowers on it, perhaps we will be able to double our crop of two almonds from last year!

Today we have harvested lots of Spinach and Kale, giving some away, cooking some and blanching and freezing the rest. Transplanted tiny Lettuce seedlings and planted some more seeds, including Capsicums.

We have realized that Andy had been planting some of the seeds too deep, not realizing that each plant likes to be planted at a certain depth, we live and learn.

 The Chinese Date/Jujube finally has some leaves sprouting, we have been told we will even get fruit from it this year- fingers crossed.

The Pomegranate and the Persimmon are now covered in leaves, they both have such elegant forms and leaf shapes they are lovely to look at.

The garden just outside the front door is doing well, here you can see Carrots, Coriander, Basil, Sage, Thyme and Capers. Once the Carrots are finished we plan to add more herbs that way they will be close to a door and easy to use for cooking.

Extending Herb Gardens and planning to cool 18th April

Today I decided it was time to do something about the front porch. It gets so hot in summer and the heat radiates back into the house. We have recently planted a Virginia Creeper beside the front wall, but thought that a trellis in front of the arch for it to grow on would solve the heat in summer problem. It will take a while to grow, so best to start now!

 Eventually I want to dig up the front lawn in front of this garden and make a bigger arched Herb garden. The trellis also needs fixing up properly, but at least now it is on the way.

The plants in the garden, are Virginia Creeper, new plants are Perennial Basil, Lemon Basil, Lemon Variegated Thyme, Thai Coriander.Further forward the existing herbs in this garden are Oregano, Purple Sage, Sage, Chives, Rosemary, Thyme and Capers.

Produce from our Garden 20/01/10

With so many people in the house and so much happening i am really pleased with how well the garden has managed with so little attention. Today I have planted lots of seedlings given as a gift by Ruth, Lettuces, Sage, Beetroot, Caraway, Capsicums and a Marshmallow plant. It was also my turn to cook so i picked ingredients as i planted this morning, and here are the results.