Herb Spiral

We have finally got round to building our herb spiral (the first part of our design for the space next to the vegetable beds) and planting out some herbs and marigolds into it. I think it looks really good and should provide a range of habitats for all our herbs.

First of all I laid out cardboard to suppress the grass beneath, we then used biomass from the garden – thin woody cuttings, last year’s dead montbretia leaves and lots of grass cuttings – to build up a mound. We then covered the pile with compost. Stones dug from the vegetable beds form walls to complete the spiral.

Herb spiral with vegetable beds in the background.

As you can see, we also planted out the first lot of herbs from inside. Along with the parade of marigolds, we also have so far planted out chives, parsley, chervil, dill and coriander.

In the next few months it will soon fill up with the thyme and oregano that are already growing inside, rosemary and some basil (in addition to the basil that will be growing beneath the tomatoes in the polytunnel). I will also plant successionally over the summer. The herb spiral should provide many of our herbs but there will be more herbs acting as companion plants for some of the vegetables.