Herb Garden Project!

This is what I've been working on the last week, instead of sewing. I'm going to be doing this kind of thing for the next 6+ weeks too, instead of sewing. Summer calls for -outward--manifestations and the pull of art is always still there, but different forms of it seems to show through. I think of this as a creative process.

It is a three tiered mostly perennial herb garden that I drew out first. I wanted it circular, womb like, Dionysian, held in the space rather than dominating on the space. For me, this circle feels good.

In the center circle I hope to house hops or grape vines of some sort. The middle ring got planted yesterday with a whole array of medicinal herbs and a few non edibles. This ring took nearly 4 days to till, weed out grass clumps, amend (compost, crab meal, potting soil is what we had), loosen some more, fix with drip tape, etc. This is a field that has been seeded with a grass called fescue, one that grabs a hold of the soil and never lets go, and plays a number on my sinuses too. I sneezed through this whole project.

The outer ring will be planted in next year. We're going to put horse manure down from a neighbor, and black plastic to kill the grass (i hate black plastic, please know this). Black plastic will be basically necessary for this first year to kill the grass that has been finding this field a home for 40+ years at least. An alternative could be cardboard with heavy compost on top.

We've also got a pomegranate tree we're going to plant at one direction (south probably) and another fruit tree at the other direction. These are also the outside entrances, where the next set of openings to the center are perpendicular to those. Not exactly a labryinth, but one does have to walk carefully through to get to the center. Eventually there will be all kinds of great herbs to watch, harvest, sit with, appreciate. I would also love to add another outer bed on one side from one fruit tree to another for annuals. But that'll be a future project once enough attention has been paid to the existing plots.

I planted: lavender, catnip, rosemary, peppermint, spearmint, thyme, summer savory, echinechia, chamomile, delphinium(flower, definitely not edible), sage (garden, not white, chives, flat and curly parsley, oregano, lemon balm, basil and nasturtium (2 different great annuals). We also put in stevia! It tastes amazing! Unfortunately only an annual. But nice to have for the summer. There are probably a few plants I missed.

Mom watering at 7 pm last night when we finally finished planting. We used seaweed/fish mix to help the plants deal with transplant shock.

Mom and I working on transplanting the waiting plants; low sun on the horizon. The bucket is full of the seaweed/fish with water. We poured it in each hole, or watered the plant after it was put in the ground.

Larger view of the garden. Mom watering. You can see how red the Virginia dirt is here in the foreground.

Me, with my dad's silly hat. This was before the last ring was tilled, and before any plants got put in the ground.