Last week I ordered retaining wall stones as well as red bricks from Lowe’s. They were delivered within 24 hours and I marked off the space along the fence where I wanted to put the herb garden.

Today Rob put the stones in place for me – and I am so happy with how it looks. The stones were 28 lbs. each, so I wasn’t able to move them. I worked on putting the bricks around our fruit and nut trees so I can weed out and add in herbs and other plants around the trees that will be beneficial for fruit production, attracting beneficial insects, as well as plants that feed the trees like Comfrey.

It’s definitely starting to come together. The herbs are all indoors and waiting for the beds to be ready. I don’t want to put anything out until after the last frost date. Probably at least May 1st.

Herbs and veggies growing in the indoor greenhouses.

Here is the before and after along the fence:

I really love the way the bricks look around the trees!

For this new 50′ x 3′ herb garden, I have Bee Balm, Echinacea, Borage, Comfrey, Yarrow, Nettle, Garlic Chives, and more. We are going to put landscaping cloth down and bring in a natural mulch. I will plant by adding soil and cutting through the cloth. We have  five grapevines also along this fence that will, in time, create a delicious green privacy fence.

Rob sprayed all of the beds, trees and vines with a fish and seaweed fertilizer – Neptune’s Harvest that a friend of ours sent us to try. We also added 1/2 – 1 inch of compost that we made =)

This is our Almond – four years old and this is the first year that it is flowering! 

For Spring plants we have three kinds of Radishes, Arugula, Claytonia, Mache, Oak Leaf Lettuce, Carrots (Scarlet Nantes) and Snap Peas all coming up.

Four kinds of apples and three different pear trees are also flowering – most for the first time. It’s definitely going to be an interesting year in this garden.

In front of Buddha, there will be another small retaining wall, a small wildlife pond and more useful dry river bed to direct water out into the garden. If I had ever doubted this project and whether or not it was making any changes – I moved an old, broken down log today and found a salamander hiding out (and hopefully nesting). They eat slugs, so we need lots of salamanders. And when there are too many salamanders – whatever eats them will arrive.  Not too shabby for a small piece of land that was just moss and violets…

Every day the garden changes a little and it’s all pretty amazing. Never doubt that a small change every day will have an effect. It absolutely does. Each small change builds something new. We just have to take a step back and really look at where we once were.

 In the garden – or in us. It’s all the same.

Much Love,
Michele