herb garden | Home on 129 Acres

Our spiral herb garden is the highlight of this year’s gardening. You may recall that last year, we built an herb garden at one end of our new patio. The garden did well in year one, so I was curious how it would make out this year.

At the start of the season, pretty much everything was in good shape. Most of the plants came back, even the parsley. The flat leaf parsley had bolted early in the season last year, so it self seeded and gave us lots of plants this year. The curly parsley held on through our mild winter, but we discovered its roots weren’t very sturdy when a close encounter with the hose in the spring knocked it off its stem. My Mom bought us a new parsley. Fitting, since the start of the garden last year was a planter she bought me for Mother’s Day.

She also replaced our basil. This was not a surprise, as it doesn’t survive in our climate. I cut it all off last fall and made it into pesto. The other nonperennial herb for us is rosemary. I’d tried to overwinter it in the house, but was unsuccessful, so I bought a new plant in the spring.

The chives, sage, lemon balm, chamomile, echinacea, milkweed, thyme, oregano and mint all came back happily in the spring and have thrived all summer. Our echinacea has been a bit sleepy since my friend gave it to us, but this year it finally started to spread.

In the case of the mint, it came back too strongly (again, not a surprise), so I dug it up, put it in a pot, and buried the pot in the garden. I did the same when I added another variety of mint that I got from my brother later this summer.

Another new addition this year is dill. I had gathered some seeds from Matt’s Dad’s dill last fall, and a sprinkle in the spring led to a happy clump this summer. I am hoping it will self seed and we will have a bigger clump next year.

The final change this year was some morning glories, which Ellie planted at the centre of the spiral. They’ve been a nice burst of colour in the middle of the garden.

We did have a few failures this year. Our lavender was hanging on in the spring but did not make it. I’ve also tried for several years now to transplant my grandmother’s poppies from my Mom’s house and have not had success.

I am considering removing our milkweed. We are big milkweed fans here for the monarch butterflies. But the milkweed is too tall and too aggressive (it rivals mint) for the herb garden. Due to how it spreads, it will be a chore to eradicate it from the garden, but we have it a lot of other places on the farm.

The garden has turned out to be a big success. It’s super low maintenance and doesn’t need much weeding or watering. I added a fresh layer of woodchips, though there were very few weeds even before that.

Most of the plants have had a thorough haircut at various times throughout the season, as they got so large and unruly. (Except for the massive lemon balm, which Ellie won’t let me cut.) In fact I’ve been able to split lots of them and give them as gifts to people.

I love the big bushy plants and how they drape over the rocks. When we do work in the garden or cut any herbs, they release such beautiful scents. I also love eating the herbs. Having the garden right outside the door is so convenient, so the herbs are used and enjoyed.

It’s amazing to me that this garden has come mostly from gifts, cuttings and transplants. Little sprigs have grown into huge plants, and it’s gratifying to have some gardening success.

What’s been your biggest gardening success this year? Do you have an herb garden at your house? Do you use fresh herbs in your cooking? What’s your favourite herb?

As part of the patio project, the garden around our well was completely ripped out. It hurt a little, as this garden was our most established flowerbed, and the plants were huge. But Ellie and I did a lot of transplanting last fall, and despite our rushed, late season, haphazard technique, the plants survived. Our contractors were also very obliging and moved some of the larger shrubs for us.

Faced with a blank slate, I started to re-evaluate the well garden, and I decided to try an herb garden. Herbs can be lovely and decorative, and also of course functional. This garden is very close to the kitchen, so it’s a convenient location for herbs. Plus it receives a lot of sun, which most herbs like.

I decided to try a different planting pattern: a spiral. (Hint: a garden hose is helpful to plan out the curves.)

I came across this idea on Pinterest. Spirals are an established technique for planting herbs. Usually people use some kind of edging (bricks, rocks, wood) and build a twisting bed that gets higher toward the centre. The spiral creates different growing conditions based on where you are on the curve, and herbs are planted in specific locations based on how much sun or water they prefer.

The well garden is round, so it’s a perfect shape for a spiral. I didn’t make ours rise very much, as I don’t love the “tower” visual, but I think the design and principles will still work. We have lots of rocks, so I used those to lay out the spiral, and we even had a start on the herbs.

My Mom gave me a big planter of herbs for Mother’s Day, so I used that. Matt’s parents gave Ellie a lemon balm plant, which she loves. Another friend gave me some echinacea. We also have chamomile growing wild around the farm, mint behind the house, and chives that I transplanted from my parents years ago. Ellie and I bought one lavender bush, a plant which I’ve wanted to add to the farm for a while. I also took a broad interpretation of beneficial plants and added some milkweed too.

It took us just a couple of hours to lay it out and put all the plants in the ground. Everything is small and a bit droopy right now, but I’m looking forward to seeing them grow.