soaked and soaped

written September 3 2006 by

Joe

tagged with

Food, Gardening, Herbs, Tutorial

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A week ago I ran into a problem.
If you’re like me, you really like fresh herbs in your food. The smell of some fresh basil can lead me to total satisfaction.
Too bad if you’re living in Austria (like me) and want some on weekend. In Austria the shops are usually closed during weekend so I had no chance to get some last weekend. This made me really mad and angry, so I decided to break free from being dependent on the shops open hours (at least when I’m about to want fresh basil)..

Problem — Joe wants to have fresh herbs any time.


Solution — Joe has to build a small herbal bed in his garden.

Things you’ll need

• a bendable wire grid to prevent voles from trying to get into your bed
• potting soil (there’s a special one available for herbs). Later, the potting soil gets blended with ground mould of your garden. You might inform yourself about the amount of soil you’ll need. It depends on the size and form of your bed.
• some stones to surround your herbal bed
• a shovel
• ready to plant herbs

The building process

First of all I thought about the form and size of the bed. I thought about steps (made out of mould) on which the herbs are arranged.

• Find a sunny place for your herbal bed. (Sun is important to let your herbs grow.)
• Use some of the stones to mark the outline of the bed.
• Create a cage with an open topside out of the wire grid and make sure it fits into the outline you’ve marked before.
• Cover the wire grid with leaves and branches (over the years they’ll turn into humus).
• Use the remaining stones to build up walls. Between each step should be a wall to stabilize the whole thing.
• Fill up the gaps with a mix of ground mould and potting soil to build steps between the walls.
• Plant the herbs into the steps. Make sure there is at least 5cm/2inches of space between the different herbs.
• Take a watering can and water the fresh herbs. The first week they need more water because of the dry potting soil. Please don’t flood them.

If there’s anything unclear or if you want to have more information on building a herbal bed, feel free to contact me via mail


(philipp [at] sparklingstudios [dot] com) or via comments.