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!

A Little History

As I said before:

Last year was the first year that the man and I had a yard to do with as we pleased.  We had attempted apartment growing but it was an abysmal failure.  We moved in at the beginning of June which meant that we were already behind.

So we were beyond excited to finally have some space with sunlight, soil, and the potential to be a beautiful garden.  It was lucky that we had that enthusiasm because after years of neglect, our little piece of land was an overgrown mess.  We hadn’t even started unpacking yet when we got to work on the front garden.  The houses on our street had some lovely landscaping going on, and our house stood out in a bad way.  There were beds but they lacked actual flowers; though they did have plenty of milkweed.  So as a way to say hello to our new neighbourhood, we cleared the weeds and planted some white petunias, hostas, and lilies.  That act alone brought the neighbours out in full force!  The only tools we had at our disposal were a trowel, transplanter, hand rake, and an electric lawn mower left behind by the previous residents.  So we had people coming by bringing us tools that we needed before we even knew we needed them.  It became evident that they were just as excited about our gardening as we were!  

The Front Yard After Some Effort

Not only did they come with tools, but they came with stories about our house’s previous residents.  Originally a horticulturalist had lived in the house; one neighbour even brought pictures of what our back yard had looked like ages before.  So I had an idea of what kind of perennials could still be in the back yard.  They then filled us in on the years of neglect the yard had suffered through.  We knew we had our work cut out for us.

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With the front garden settled, we turned our attention to the backyard.  There were three beds, one running along the fence on one side, a corner bed in the back, and a small one beside the patio.  We could tell that there were some nice (and probably expensive) perennials that had survived over the years, but it was hard to see them and assess how many with all the weeds in the way.  So we got to work.

Side Bed After A Little Weeding

Corner Bed Before Weeding

We cleared out roughly seven brown bags of weeds and unfortunately some perennials along with them.  The worst part of this process was the insects.  As you can see above, the borders were lined with anchor border stone which had enough space in between to become a MASSIVE nest for every ant on the planet.  Which of course brought out the spiders; the garden was infested with them.  It was terrible.  Luckily, the house came stocked with supplies – apparently someone had had some plans along the way that were never executed.  We cleared away each stone, hosed off the ants, and stacked it neatly in a corner – replacing it with flagstone we found on the property.  To try and counteract the acidity caused by the weed population, we mixed urea and top soil in for good measure.  Our beds were now prepped.

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Our adventure in the garden center was far more enjoyable.  The husband and I spent ages going through our options, trying to figure out if we even had enough space for everything we wanted.  In the end we walked away with raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, sweet peas, cucumbers, squash, celery, boston lettuce, arugula, endive, and some other mixed greens.  We also picked up lavender, basil, rosemary, parsley, dill, chives, and celeriac.  As we walked out with our bounty an elderly woman told us we had bit off more than we could chew for first time gardeners.  

Side Bed: Raspberries, Strawberries, Sweet Peas, Green Beans, Celery, Salad Greens, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, & Squash

The Same Bed After Some Time w/ Support for the Peas & Beans

Not everything we planted survived the summer, and we had to first get rid of the squash and then the cucumbers because of an unstoppable powdery mildew that ultimately threatened the tomatoes, but in the end it was an excellent first summer in the garden.  I’m now hoping it wasn’t just beginner’s luck and that we can enjoy similar success this summer.

Welcome to Chamomile & Calendula

After having a successful growing season last year with my very first garden, I have decided that it’s time to up the ante.  The seeds for the 2012 growing season are en-route, the garden has been prepped, and I’m here to share my successes and failures with the world.

Last year, my husband and I finally moved to a house with a yard, and we immediately began to work on our vegetable garden.  We had attempted a vegetable corner in our previous apartment but it was a bust (all we grew was a malformed green tomato).  But that was not the case last summer.  We had more tomatoes and beans than we could handle!  This year I have opted for more diversity in the garden.  I’ve been given half the yard to do with as I please, while the man manages the vegetable patch on the opposite side of the yard. 

My focus this year will be on a fairly ambitious culinary and medicinal herb garden.  As our yard is relatively small, it should require some significant planning, well thought-out execution, and some serious elbow grease throughout the summer months.  I’ll be chronicling every step of the way; from seed to bloom to being used around the house, and of course any hiccups I have along the way.

For anyone who happens to stumble across my humble little corner of the internet: feel free to offer me any tips, tricks, or old family wisdom to help me along my journey toward my ambitious herb garden.  I’d also be happy to have any words of encouragement or criticism.  At the end of the day, this blog isn’t about me – it’s about the garden.