Frog Pond and Herb Spiral Extension

 After de-paving more areas I decided to further extend the Herb Spirals on the front section next to the driveway. Having such hot weather also made me realise how important it is to provide water for wildlife so I lined an old cement plant pot and filled in with water and a native reed and placed it in the middle of the bed. Once the surrounding plants provide some shelter I will move some fish from one of the other ponds in as well to assist with keeping the water clean.

Herb Spiral 2 Completed

 I finished the second herb spiral today and am really pleased with the results. I have planted a range of herbs, rainbow chard and strawberries and a lavender on top to attract bees.  I have used mulch to top the garden up as we had surplus and the straw was a little lower than I wanted.

 

 

Here  is the view of both spirals from the front with the initial spiral in the foreground.

 

And here is a closer view of the second spiral. I will  now keep an eye on both to check the progress of the plants as these are so new and I am not sure how soon I will need to top up the beds.

Herb Spiral and Tropical Grove

 I have almost completed the second herb spiral using and expect to complete it later today. Once again I have broken up broken pavers to create a drainage rubble in the bottom as it is built on concrete. Then I have used old newspapers and cardboard and added them torn up in layers before putting  the pea straw on top. I have purchased some herbs and will also get some strawberries and
another lavender for the top, and may add mulch this time once the final layers of brick are on as I have not had worm castings or coffee grounds to add this time.

 

I am aiming to get it at about the same height as the first herb spiral, but that will of course depend on the pavers available as I am using pavers that have been lifted from the garden to create larger garden beds or gardens. I need to break up broken pavers and slabs to create drainage rubble for the bottom.

 We have also been working on creating a semi-tropical grove in a neglected part of the garden as we have now had success with our banana plant and want to extend that and provide some privacy from the neighbors behind. The image above is of a Timor Black Bamboo, it has edible shoots and a beautiful trunk, it was pot bound and on sale at our local Bunnings, so we divided it and put  it against the side and back fence.

This is the semi- tropical grove at the next stage with a mango, lemongrass, papayas, pineapple top and of course the existing and recently transplanted  bananas. And some chairs to keep the dog out!

Bananas, Herb Spirals and Sheet Mulching

We removed one of the original fridges that we had used as a no-dig garden from the beginning as it was too rusty. We then decided that we would transplant the two banana plants which were struggling to grow beside the pool and put them in this space. This puts them back near the original banana plant and as we now know that they like to grow in clumps, close together, we hope that this will see them flourish. As well we have learnt now that they need a lot of food so we used compost, wood ash, chicken manure.potash and pea straw when we planted them and watered them thoroughly. We found some really useful articles online and you can read them here, here and here.

When we removed the old fridge I was then able to lift up the pavers beneath it and start a second herb spiral. Whilst doing this I was very pleased to be able to harvest another 4 kilos of sweet potatoes.This will need to be completed more slowly than the first one as I am not on holidays, but I hope to get it built in the next week or two.

Finally we also used a huge pile of cardboard that I had collected and a pile of free mulch to extend the area of lawn that has been sheet mulched on the nature strip. We managed to get to the edge of our property and will need to start collecting boxes again.

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.

First Layer - Herb Spiral

After doing some research I have decided that a herb spiral would be a good use of the stack of pavers that we have on the concrete area that I would like to get rid of. It took a few goes to work out the right way to  lay the pavers that we have and the size of the spiral. But that is okay as the permaculture method means that you should look at the resources that you have, including the area and building material, and use and consider those first. After reviewing this plan I did change the layout of the spiral as it is open ended and this is probably not the bets option on a concrete base.

Herb Spirals

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 I have been thinking about what we can do with an area of concrete that is between the fence and the driveway. It is ugly, unproductive and a heat trap. However, it would be a huge amount of work to dig up and then we would have to get rid of it.

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 So having considered raised beds etc I am now researching herb spirals as we have a huge pile of pavers that we have no need for. I am continually taking pavers up to expand gardens, not putting them down!

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I will need to do more research, but think that this idea has merit.