...Spring?

It appears that spring has sprung!

Some Daffodils Peeking Out

My garden has woken up in some unexpected places.  As I’ve written before, our back yard was a shambles when we moved in and we had some grand designs going in.  We came across a number of bulbs last year when we were clearing out the beds, and we sorted through them by feeling them out.  Tossing the hollow bulbs and collecting the healthy ones.  At the end we weren’t too sure what to do with them, we had no idea what they were in the first place.  Since we weren’t really using the corner garden at the time, we just kind of placed the bulbs in there at random to see what came about the following season.   Well they’ve come through now, and I’m pretty sure we are looking at daffodils and tulips. 

I now have plans for that corner, so being the impulsive person that I am; I decided to risk a transplant at their young age.  I had a basic trowel and what I call my garden bucket.  Here are the steps I took to get them out safely for transplant:


1)  I cleared the leaves away and dug deep about 3 inches away from the base of the plant.  


2) After moving the soil toward me and away from the shoots, I began to dig around them by hand since I was nervous about hurting the root system or the bulb itself.  


3) I filled the garden bucket with soil from the bed, and placed the bulbs in after getting their root systems out intact.


4) Once I had removed all of the shoots and added some more soil to the bucket, I took brought them to their new home out front.  I had prepared the bed and tried my best  not to disturb the other perennials that were already there.  I placed the daffodils in as deep as I had found them; trying to plant them until the white part of the shoots were covered.


5) I held the base between the bulb and the shoot, and sifted the soil from their last bed in around their root system and around the bulb until it was secure.  (Note: I brought the soil along to try and prevent any shock that could occur.)  Once they were set, I covered them some more with a mixture of soil from their old and new bed.


6) I repeated these steps for each shoot/bulb until each one was happily situated, and shook out the remaining soil over the bed.  Then I watered them hoping that it would give the bulbs a chance to settle in, and prayed that I hadn't killed them.


I'm still a little nervous about the transplant because I refused to Google (thinking it would tell me that I shouldn't do it) but when I told my Dad about the move, he reminded me that: “If you've killed them this year, they’ll still come back around next year!”  So for now they have a new home in my front garden, which is full to the brim with perennials and from here on in I only really have to worry about the back yard.  If you're wondering: the front garden has spring blooming daffodils and tulips (we think), and summer blooming hostas and tiger lilies.  I may just pick up a flat of petunias to fill it out during the hot summer months since the hostas are still little. 

The Start of a Tulip?

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 On top of that I had the god awful task of removing an old sandbox that we didn’t take care of last summer.  It was full of mold, earwigs, and spider nests so we closed it up and waited until colder weather.  The process of removing an old broken down sand box is tedious and disgusting.  You can see the sandbox on the right of the picture below.  The problem with getting rid of an old sandbox is that you can’t just spread the sand out over your yard because you risk infecting it with whatever has been surviving in that sand (i.e. earwig eggs, spider eggs, spores).  We had to take it apart shovel-full by shovel-full and store the sand in a bin and take it to the dump.  Some sand is still kicking around in a garbage bin on the patio, but I'm sure I'll figure out some way to get rid of that.  I'm just glad that it's gone and I can reclaim that space for something useful.  

A word to the wise:  If you want your child to play with sand…go to the beach! Sand boxes are disgusting!

A Terrible Picture of the Last Frost (So Far)

With that out of the way I could finally work on making some beds.  My plans for the garden this year included expanding the beds we already had, and making a border around the patio.  I did it in a day, and they turned out nicely if I do say so myself. I extended the corner bed to connect to a gravel filled bed between fence and the patio.  It's only about a foot and a half wide but I think that should be plenty of space for my culinary herbs.  If not I'll just keep expanding outward.

The Start of the New Bed

I still marvel at the quality of the soil in our back yard, it’s so dark and rich.  The ladies over at the garden centre warn me that it's because it was left to its own devices for so long though, and to be prepared for some real work in a year or so.  I'm mentally preparing myself for that day - the day when I realize I never had a green thumb at all; I just had an easy and willing canvas.  I suppose knowing that now I can at least prepare for the inevitable.  Thank goodness for Google, a library card, and the know-how of those around me.  


 The only problem I came upon was the empty patch left behind by the sand box that wasn't made into a border.  Luckily while digging out the border around the patio, I managed to gather some “sod” to cover it up.  I just kind of jig-saw puzzled the grass clumps down, trying to get the roots/dirt as close to uniform as possible.  After a real good rainfall the following day, I pulled my rubber boots on and went walking around on it...y'know to flatten it out...  Not a pro job, but it's only grass and not exactly my primary concern.  When it comes to the garden I try to be as resourceful as possible otherwise it can get expensive.  You can see that the corner where the sandbox was is looking way better now even if it is a little lumpy.   Now I just can't wait to have some actual plants in that border. 

  

Finished Border

So I've officially finished my spring cleaning in the back yard.  It took a little hard work, but here we are.  Now to finish up the plugs and pray that the winter is well and truly gone.  However, I will mention something the ladies at the garden centre said:  "All good things come to those who wait!"  These ladies have years of experience on me, and while I'm chomping at the bit to dive in and get the extra mileage out of the great weather here; there is no telling what weather is around the corner.  It is still March, and we are still a month away from last year's final frost.

My next move is planting my peas tomorrow, and caring for the seedlings.  I'll also let you know how my recklessly transplanted bulbs are doing as well.  Hopefully I can post on those two in the next 48 hours.

Thanks for coming around :)  Feel free to let me know if I did any irreparable harm to my bulbs, if you know of an easy way to get rid of "infected" sand, or if you think that I'm doing an okay job so far.  Cheers!

Where To Put You...

My ambition is limited by my yard.  As I said in the last post, my yard is not that big and my herb garden has to share the space with the vegetable garden.  My side of the garden also has some shady spots which don’t necessarily work with the needs of my plants.  While I could just accept it and have fewer herbs in the garden (really?) that’s just not in my nature.  There are still other options!  I could widen my beds, make new beds, have window baskets, have a few in containers, and add hanging baskets wherever possible.

There are some key variables to solving this space problem:

Basic Survival Needs:

-       Annual/Biennial/Perennial

-       Light Requirements

-       Soil Requirements

-       Spread & Spacing

Design & Aesthetic Choices:

-       Height

-       Spread

Grouping:

-       Annual/Biennial/Perennial

-       Uses

Some of these variables are repeated because they play a role in more than one aspect of my design.  (Please note: These were variables that I felt were important but it may not cover everything, I’m learning by trial and error here so feel free to comment if I’m missing something here) The most time consuming aspect of the planning process for me is getting all of the basic requirements gathered and organized.  So I did some research and made a chart:

Basic Survival Needs

		USE	HEIGHT	SUNLIGHT	SOIL
Rosemary	P	E	5 FT	2	S
Chives	P	E	1 FT	2	A-R, M
Parsley	A	E	1 FT	1	R/M
Lemon/Italian Basil	A	E	2 FT	1	R/M
Wild Marjoram	P	E	2 FT	2	R
Sage	P	E	2 FT	1	S
Cilantro	A	E	3 FT	2	R
Dill	A	E	4 FT	2	A-S/M
Lemon Balm	P	M	2 FT	2	S-WD/A
Chamomile	A	M	2 FT	2	A/R
Yarrow	P	M	2 FT	1	P/S/A
Echinacea	P	M	3 FT	1	D/A
Feverfew	P	M	CONTAINER	2	D
Hyssop	P	M	3 FT	2	D/WD
Calendula	A	M	3 FT	2	R/A
Beebalm	P	M	4 FT	2	A/M
St. John’s Wort	P	M	3 FT	1	R/WD
Lavendar	P	M	3 FT	1	S
Comfrey	P	M	2 FT	2	R
Valerian	P	M	4 FT	1	WD

With all of the basic information gathered I could begin sketching out the basic outline.

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An important thing to mention about myself at this point is that when I take on a task, I tend to focus on the prettier aspects first.  Of course, this means that while planning this garden I’m starting with the basic elements of design and then I’ll eventually move on to worrying about those little things like the plants basic needs.  My first focus is the height of the herbs.  When working on this, I planned for their long term potential.  Since I’m a visual person – I made some sketches:

Design & Aesthetic Choices:

.

The Culinary Herbs

The Medicinal Herbs

The sketches themselves are rough, and as you can see don’t exactly remain scale, but it gets the general idea across.  It definitely helps me to see it on paper so I can have some idea of how much plant I’ll be dealing with.  However I was worried that I would run out of space on the page, so I kind of botched the spread of the plants.

With an idea of the sizes, I moved on to outlining the garden.  It was more about creating and blocking space than placing plants at this point.  This sketch is a rough outline of the back garden with additional beds, like a first draft of where the plants should go.  I'm sorry that it came out so dark.

Bird's Eye Draft

Grouping

Before I can commit to anything I have to sketch it out…a lot.  With that in mind, I have to consider the garden in the long term.  If I put something in the wrong space, it would bother me every time I went into the garden.  During my research it became apparent that you should consider how you will group your plants.  One focus is the plants life time: Is it perennial, biennial, or annual?  You don’t want to disturb the perennials every year planting annuals, or so I’ve read. 

Another thing I considered at this point was the use of the herb.  It’s always a good call to keep your culinary herbs closer to the house so you can access them even in bad weather.  Some of the herbs also attract bees, and I don’t really want them buzzing all over me if I’m just relaxing on the patio.  With all things considered, this is my first draft:

Current "Final" Draft

Like I said, this will probably change – most likely due to practical reasons that I haven’t considered yet.  Are there any glaringly obvious issues at this point?  Feel free to let me know!

The Start of Something Big

The idea began simply enough.  I was considering expanding on my herb selection within the garden.  I had been looking into having a more complete selection of culinary herbs, but at some point during this research process I suddenly decided that I could do better; I could plant more.

Having had a lifelong obsession with historical fiction/non-fiction and a brief stint as a Wiccan in my teenage years, the transition from a solely culinary to both culinary and medicinal herbal garden wasn’t such a shock.  I loved reading the descriptions of medieval monastic gardens and the practical uses of plants that could be considered a weed.  I really enjoyed the idea of a garden that served a purpose.  This idealism may foreshadow future trouble in this garden.

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It really did begin innocently enough.  All of my herbs were in containers last year which is probably the reason they all stayed so small.  I had planted lavender, basil, and rosemary in some 1.5 L containers and the rest were in containers I put on the fence.  However, I never re-potted them so they never had a chance to grow much higher than a foot.  At some point last summer I thought of planting them in the ground but I was torn; if I planted them then I couldn’t bring them inside and enjoy them throughout the cold winter months.  When the cooler weather rolled in, I brought the lavender, basil, and rosemary inside, but all three dried out when our house sitter forgot to water them while we were away on holidays.  Having lost my tiny reminder of the previous summer months, I began to consider my direction for the upcoming growing season.  Despite losing the container plants this winter, I’m still a little torn when it comes to planting them in the ground vs. in containers.  BUT I can always do both!

On the fence: Dill, Chives & Parsley
In containers: Rosemary, Basil & Lavender

The idea of having a prolific herb garden had been in my mind for awhile, and it was something that the man and I had talked about.  With a serious sense of ambition, I began to negotiate how much of the garden I could devote solely to herbs.  He loves cooking, and having grown up in Germany with an Oma and Opa who had (and still have) an amazing vegetable and herb garden, he was a fan of having more options available.  The one stipulation: Its well-being was in my hands and solely my responsibility. 

A View of Oma & Opa's Garden

Oma's Rhubarb

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With that all settled I began to outline what culinary herbs I’d like to have at my disposal.  The list grew quickly, and it currently includes:

-       Rosemary

-       Lemon Basil

-       Italian Basil

-       Wild Marjoram

-       Chives

-       Cilantro

-       Dill

-       Parsley

-       Sage

-       Thyme

-      

A few days later we had to stop by the garden centre to pick up some potting soil to re-pot a few roses we keep around the house, but once we got inside we got a little carried away.  The man was off inspecting vegetable seeds for the summer, so of course if he was going to gets seeds then I was getting some seeds too!  I found a few of the ones I wanted, and picked up a few that just looked interesting…everybody impulse buys seeds right?  Well, I happened to grab some Lemon Balm seeds, and that is when my herb garden plans began to expand.

While I wasn't too sure how I could use the Lemon Balm, I assumed the internet would have some answers.  My first search led to a site that outlined not only its culinary uses, but its medicinal properties as well.  One thing led to another (as it usually does on the internet) and suddenly I had a list of medicinal herbs I was interested in.  This list included:

-        Lemon Balm

-       Chamomile

-       Lavender

-       Yarrow

-       Echinacea

-       Feverfew

-       Hyssop

-       Calendula

-       Bee Balm

-       Valerian

-       St. John’s Wort

-       Comfrey

My interest in these particular herbs ranged from practical applications to their ability to attract pollinators, and it didn’t hurt that some of them could do double duty in the practical/pretty department.

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With an outline of what plants I want - I come to my first real challenge: 

Could all of these herbs fit in my tiny yard?  

This is a MUCH harder question to answer when you get down to the nitty gritty.  Our yard is about 25 ft x 30 ft, and I only get half of that space for my own devices.  Not only that, but a chunk of my space is relatively shady which is not a good thing considering herbs prefer full sun.  I also happen to have a full grown Red Bud shading one of my beds, so that will ultimately impact the planning process as well. 

 Oh, and I am already well aware that I don't have nearly enough space for all of these plants to breathe freely and be safe from overcrowding.  So it seems that I already have a serious puzzle to solve, and it's only February.

Wish me luck!