Gardening Adventures with Glor and Shan

After reading in Gaia's Garden (toby Hemenway) about herb spirals, we decided to build our own.  We did this in April.  I have herbs growing in the house that I'm excited to put in here once it is warm enough. The rocks came from a neighbour who no longer wanted them.  The soil came from our "compost" pile in the back where we dump our mulched leaves every year.

Looks good Lorianne!  I'm still in the planning process on mine but hope to get started within the next month if all goes well.  What herbs are you planning to plant in it?

I'm sad I'm going to miss whatever great sauces you make this summer with all your fresh herbs!

Michelle Heath wrote:Looks good Lorianne!  I'm still in the planning process on mine but hope to get started within the next month if all goes well.  What herbs are you planning to plant in it?

I have started oregano, basil, dill and parsley in house.  I am going to include thyme as well as it grew really well last year in pots.  I make my own salad dressing so it was awesome to have fresh herbs last year.  Looking forward to the day they can move into their new spiral home!

Cam Haslehurst wrote:I'm sad I'm going to miss whatever great sauces you make this summer with all your fresh herbs!

Ahh that's nice Cam.  When you come home, I'm sure we'll still have some fresh herbs and I'll definitely cook some up some yummy stuff!

Today's project was to build a sheet mulch at the side of my deck.  My plan is to have some type of perennial flowers growing there this summer.  I read about how to do it in Gaia's Garden (just like the herb spiral). It took almost 3 hours but I'm happy with it. It has many layers.  

First layer was bonemeal on the existing grass that I poked holes into with a pitch fork.

Next layer was cardboard (from an the top of the rafters in the garage)

Then I needed a green layer so go the mower going and cut some grass and bagged it.  This is the first picture.

After that I needed 8-12 inches of brown leaves.  Mine were all in a pile in the corner of my yard but I noticed that my neighbour had bagged their leaves up to bring to the recycling centre.  I told her to just throw them over the fence.  "Are you serious?" she asked.  I told her 100% serious.  I'm making a sheet mulch.  She was more than happy to give me her leaves!

I mulched them up with the mower and made my 1 foot of brown leaves.

Next layer was compost then soil then leaves.  (The second picture shows the finished product)

After each layer, I thoroughly soaked the pile.  

I'm looking forward to putting some flowers here later this year!

And bonus, the paper bags that my neighbour's leaves were in are something that I can use to do my next sheet mulch.