Members of my spiritual community working in the herb garden
The best soil in the garden is in the herb garden. But from time to time I need to dig out the used up soil and add 3-6″ of new, nutrient rich soil. This is a big job and would typically take me a full week of back breaking work. But thanks to some community volunteers, we got it completely done in about 6 hours.
Digging around the perennials
First we pulled out all the dead plants and weeds from over the winter;
then we dig out the old used up dirt and haul it to the dirt pile out back to be blended in with compost later in the year;
Bear, sorting and tying comfrey leaf
during the process Miss Bear was sitting beside the garden at the table preparing early season herbs that were being harvested. Here she is sorting and tying comfrey leaf so it can be hung to dry;
finally, new garden soil is brought in from the giant pile out back, and some is also sprinkled on top of the existing perennials, taking care to shake it down between the stems all the way to the base of the plant.
A Long day, but soo worth it. Thank you everyone! Happy happy herb garden.
Tulips under the catalpa. I hung colored eggs, with blessings in them, on the catalpa tree to welcome in the spring.
My good friend Panayoti Kelaidis gifted me 3 of these beautiful African Sages 20 years ago, for my Aurora Colorado garden. I divided them and took them with me to our new home in Brighton. They are growing well, even in this crappy soil.
North patio African sage gardenNatural, un-irrigated grass over the leach field.
We amended the soil and added drought resistant, natural prairie grasses over the leach field. This area gets no extra water other than what leaches out into the field.
Willow tree
I
LOVE
this
big
Willow. I have always wanted a willow tree, they are so romantic. There are only a couple varieties that grow well in Colorado in not planted b a body of water. I bought this one from Home Depot. The tag said that it would do well in drought conditions so I thought I would give it a try. So far, soo lovely!
The herb garden
There’s still color and lots of green growth in the wild flower garden (top left), the green in the leach field is grass (center), all the rest of it is mowed weeds! We’ve got a long way to go.
Mellissa, marshmallow, horehound, taragon, parsley and thymeMullien, meadow sweet, comfrey, rosemary, and a large sunflower helianthus that was supposed to be an herb.Hyssop, fever few, rue, motherwort, chive, betonyDill, fennel, oregano, sage, fever few, angelica, bergamot
The Herb garden is really starting to fill out, and provide an abundant harvest! Soo many cool things to do with herbs. I’ll be busy in the basement this winter.
It was time to put in irrigation to water everything that had been planted so far. You can see that we have laid the larger 1″ hose for the main irrigation line that will service the trees. This line is connected to the larger 2″ PVC line which is buried 12″ down. Dragging around the hose is just too much work, and takes too much time.
We painted and measured where the edging would go
We also began to plan out delineating the boundaries of the lawn. We saw an example of concrete edging at the home and garden show, so we looked into what that would cost and decided to go ahead and splurge on edging for the lawn spaces, north and south.
You can see the orange paint on the dirt, outlining where the concrete edging will be laid. You can also see in this picture the flat stones were purchased to be used as steps down from the level of the front yard, to the lower level of the south willow garden.
Creating a border for the willow garden with black granite
The house was built on top of the ground, due to the high water table here, so there is a 6′ difference in level from the front door to the south side of the property.
The willow garden is being created, day lilies have been planted along the edge, sand cherries and Russian sage. We put in a bird feeder so we can watch the birds out the south dinning room bay window. Looking down the pathway to the west end of the property you can see that the west berm has been installed and the cupola has been placed and anchored into the ground.
Hedge planting
Meanwhile in the front yard, the new hedges have been planted around the entire driveway. After I measured the spacing and determined that I needed 200 hedge shrubs – I had a complete conniption fit! No way could I afford to buy that many shrubs, not to mention, no one locally had that many. I called and called with no luck. Then I stumbled upon a nursery out of state that had saplings. So in desperation I decided to give it a try. They arrived in a single plastic bag. The saplings were 18″ tall and 1/8″ diameter little twigs. I shook my head, but I went ahead and planted them with help from my friends Robin and Mary. It took all day. I remember the look on my neighbors faces as I crawled around on my knees with my ruler, meticulously measuring the distance between each shrub and the distance from the driveway edging.
Tiny hedge shrubs
I enlarged the picture so you can actually see the saplings. Daily watering was required, but they made it.
Dear Mark.
My good friend Mark Johnson died this year, along with one of his two daughters. The whole thing was tragic. His second daughter delivered some of his, and his daughter’s ashes to me one afternoon following his memorial service. She said Mark had asked to have his ashes buried on my property. So I purchased an oak tree, (as he was a Druid and Oaks are sacred to them) and buried his and his daughter’s ashes under it.
Mark’s sacred Oak Tree
I planted the oak in the North, which is the most sacred direction to the Druids and next to the Womb of Earth, for all things come from the Mother, and all things return. I drove his athame into the ground with the oak tree to delineate the site as sacred.
Developing the backyard spaceslooking north/west from the edge of the front driveway
The piano harp marks the space where the butterfly garden will be created. Mark’s oak is in front of the north berm, right behind the harp. Now, there are 4 new evergreens on the north berm, Austrian Black Pines, Brian’s Mother, Judy, bought them for us as a gift to our new home when she moved here from Albuquerque.
Also, in front of the harp is a ditch which is being dug for drainage from the south side of the property, which is higher, to the north side, and off the property into the drainage ditch that surrounds the entire property. In 2005 we had a massive downpour and all the water ran into the middle of the garden where the herb garden was being built. Luckily, this happened when the herb garden was just the bottom rows of the structure. The water settled and sank the septic tanks about 2′, making a giant hole in the middle of the herb garden. We had to rip it out and Morrison Homes had to come out and lift the tanks back up, and mud jack tons of dirt back under the tanks to get them back to level. OMG – I thought I was going to loose my mind, it was such a disaster. Anyway, so we are digging a drainage ditch!
Crocus
All the little marks in the ground are holes being dug to plant 4000 crocus, 2000 on each side of what will be the lawn. This project took me an entire week on my hands and knees. I can’t wait to see them bloom next spring.
Progress on the Herb Garden.
It’s amazing how fast herbs recover. They got dug up, put in pots, over-wintered across town in pots covered with straw, and then replanted into the new herb garden last fall. I’m thrilled at how well they did this first year.
Getting the Herb Garden built this first year was very important to me. I had a very productive herb garden at my house in Aurora (which the new owner immediately tore out!); all my herbs were living in pots at Jackie’s house, and the Herb Garden was to be the central anchoring point of the entire rear garden. So after putting in the driveway in June, we set to work on the Herb Garden in July. Bless my husband for his diligence and love.
Drilling the holes for the Herb Garden support posts
Of course he did get to play with another piece of heavy equipment. After deciding that there was no way to dig the footings by hand, we rented an auger. Brian had soo much fun!
Drilling holes
We designed the structure so it would sit around the septic tank lids and hide them. The east/west walkway covers the tank lids. When the tanks need to be drained, the walkway comes up so the septic service can access the tank lids and do their stinky thing.
Outer structure
Mowing weeds
The posts are 2′ into the ground and 6′ above ground. There are 3 levels of 6″ 2×6 to make the sides. The structure is divided into 4 planting beds by two walkways, which run east-west and south-north. (The east-west walkway hides the tank lids.)
Chicken wire keeps underground predators out, and once the picket fencing was up and painted, we stapled more chicken wire to the inside of the frame to keep rabbits out. 3″ of gravel was laid down under the walkways for additional drainage.
Chicken wire
There are four doors for entering the garden, one in each of the four cardinal directions. I later painted them in the four elemental colors to match, yellow-east, red-south, blue-west and green-north. Brian put a lot of time and engineering into building this structure. I wanted it to be 8 sided to represent the wheel of the year,
Screwing down the walkway slats
and I wanted 4 garden sections. I also wanted the 4 gates so that entry into the garden from any side of the garden would make it easier to work in. I did as much as I could. I helped with the concrete pouring, holding boards while they were drilled and/or bolted together, and I put down the walkways. Then of course, 18″ of rich garden soil had to be brought in. Voila!
A Long day, but soo worth it. Thank you everyone! Happy happy herb garden.
The willow garden is being created, day lilies have been planted along the edge, sand cherries and Russian sage. We put in a bird feeder so we can watch the birds out the south dinning room bay window. Looking down the pathway to the west end of the property you can see that the west berm has been installed and the cupola has been placed and anchored into the ground.
