May 27, 2006
Adding potatoes and an herb spiral
The garden work has slowed down a little as planting season comes to an end. We planted lots of trees, including plum, hazelnut, birch, poplar, maple, and chestnut, but work on major changes to the overall landscape has slowed down for a while. Over the last week or so, though, Josh made two substantial additions to the garden: three rows of potatoes and an herb spiral.
There are three varieties of potatoes, each in a row: Cranberry Red, Kennebuck, and Keuka Gold, a local potato variety. The potatoes went into the old vegetable garden, which has good soil and a neutral pH. (We'd thought about planting the three sisters of corn, squash, and beans, but maybe next year.)
Three rows of potatoes.
The herb spiral didn't take Josh that long to assemble, but it was a huge transformation from what had been a mound in the center of the garden. Walking out of my back door, it's about twenty feet directly to this, which seems likely to be the productive centerpiece of the house garden:
Herb spiral.
The herb spiral, inspired by the one described in Gaia's Garden, is densely planted with herbs, their location on the spiral determined by their needs for sun and water. In a space just five feet in diameter, there are lots of little microclimates. The herbs here include pineapple sage, lemon thyme, german thyme, chervil, parsley, mountain mint, garlic chives, basil, salvia, purple sage, munstead lavender, summer savory, golden oregano, marjoram, and rosemary. Now I just need to use all these herbs!
I've posted a gallery of photos if you'd like to see more of how this was assembled.
Posted by simon at May 27, 2006 9:52 AM in my house , permacultureNote on photos