Sunday, April 27, 2014

Who needs a gym membership when you're a gardener!

Peggy Martin rose

I'm looking forward to the work week so I can get some rest :-)
Gardening is exhausting work but the results are sure worth it!
Cinco de Mayo rose

I reworked my tomato bed with more composted soil, hauled and spread 10 bags of mulch around the yard, sawed off the gutter and almost got my rain barrel finished (another trip to Lowes for screws and washers),

 re-potted 2 bushes, pulled weeds, tied up my climbing rose bush to the fence, and re-hung the bird feeder to confound the squirrels.

I don't know why I signed up 
for a gym membership!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

My Spiral Herb Garden - "How to Make one" Step-by-step






I'm doing a "Happy Dance" since today I finally made a spiral herb garden!



I had seen several versions of these garden designs on Pinterest last year and decided to start collecting green and brown bottles (and having friends collect them for me) to use in making mine.


I especially liked the design I had seen on the Rubbercowgirl.com blog post:


I didn't have enough bottles to use for the whole spiral yet, so for now, I used
petrified wood pieces to complete the design.

It was a fun and easy project and can be finished in a day - provided you have been saving your glass bottles instead of recycling!

Here are some progression pictures of how I made this.
If I can do it - anyone can!

1st - lay out your spiral design with stones

2nd - put down newspaper or cardboard, overlapping it at the edges to kill the grass underneath. You could use a shovel and take it out, but the cardboard works and saves lots of time!

3rd - I used a large clay pot planted with mint for my tallest center planting. The pot should help keep the mint from over-spreading it's bounds. This pot was set on top of another brick, to give it the extra height. I've heard that the height should be about the same distance as the width of your design.
4th - Begin adding dirt to build the walls, reinforcing them with the stone or bottles.

5th - When you are happy with your design, add plants!


Mine was planted with spearmint, tarragon (Mexican marigold mint) which has cute little yellow flowers, dianthus (for added color), dill, lemon balm, curly leaf parsley, basil, and thyme.



This little garden, right outside my kitchen window, makes me smile :-)