Green Thumb
Garden Club
Uvalde, Texas
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Spiral Herb Garden
in 4 Easy Steps
This structure is built using a Gabion wall. Gabions are wire structures, in essence large baskets, that are filled with rock or masonry material to form large blocks for structures such as retaining walls or channel linings. They have the advantage of being extremely rugged and relatively cheap for the large areas they can buttress. Gabion walls can be small or large in scale, and are useful for the homeowner for jobs like lining culverts and stopping slope erosion.
Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_5487235_build-gabion-wall.html#ixzz2skPxkwFb
Want to make your own vertical Herb Spiral Garden? This compact space saving design can be made with a few basic steps.
Construction materials and methods vary so after deciding on the best position and gathering your materials, you can have one built the same day.
Materials
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Cardboard (without ink or tape), weed mat or gravel is optional but useful to kill weeds if building your spiral straight on top of lawn. Also, you may need a drill for drainage holes if building on top of concrete.
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Long stake: Secure a 1m length of string to the stake and tie at the other end with a lightweight stake, bamboo cane or chalk. Use this to draw a line on the ground to measure out the circle.
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Organic matter: (mushroom compost, worm castings, Lucerne, mulch, straw and garden soil to build fertility to feed your garden long term. (the quantity depends on the diameter of your spiral).
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Compost: (for planning your herbs into, homemade is best as it will be full of living microorganisms)
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Rock minerals and organic fertilizer
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Mulch: Lucerne, sugarcane, baled grassy mulch hay, pea straw, grass clippings, leaves, etc.
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Herb seedlings: bay tree and vegetable seedlings if planting
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(Optional) Pond Materials: Irrigation fittings are required if they are being added.
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Gabion wall materials (if building this structure), see materials list and instructions at this website: http://www.ehow.com/how_5487235_build-gabion-wall.html#ixzz2skPxkwFb
Choose a location that receives at least 5 hours of full sun per day and is easily accessible.
STEP 1: Measuring up – Have someone hold or bang the stake into the central point of the ground where you want to position your herb spiral. To determine the perimeter, stretch out the string attached to the centre stake to mark out your circle, drawing a line in the soil with the other stake or bamboo cane tied on the end of it (or use chalk if you are marking out a hard surface).
The diameter averages between 1.5 – 2m (5 – 6.5 ft) or 750cm – 1m (2.5 – 3.25 ft) from the center.
Tip: If building straight on top of concrete, make sure you drill holes or have adequate drainage.
STEP 2: Your base – if starting on lawn you will need to stop weeds from growing. Cardboard can be used for this purpose to sheet mulch and build the spiral on top. No light=no weeds! Some people use newspapers or thick phone books instead but I choose to avoid adding anything to my organic garden with inks that may be based on genetically modified soy beans. Cardboard edges need to be well overlapped to block all light.
Lay your weed mat or wet cardboard (soak with a hose or in a wheelbarrow) to cover the circle you have marked out. Cardboard will breakdown and add carbon to your soil and provides a food source for microorganisms. You may also choose to add some organic matter under this to accelerate breakdown of the cardboard such as chopped vegetable scraps and other green waste from your garden.
Step 1: example
Step 2: example
STEP 3: Construct the wall structure – Using your edging material of choice, start laying your bricks/rocks on the outer edge and working inwards to create a spiral shape, allowing about 0.5m (1.6 ft) width to plant into or adjust if making a smaller spiral. For a more formal look, use mortar or cement between your bricks or stones.
Tip: Save your best looking materials for the outside ‘face’ and those that will not be seen on the inside of the spiral.If using heavy rocks or stone, you may prefer to dig a shallow trench around the circumference of the circle and lay these into it on top of a layer of cardboard or weed mat to prevent weeds.
If using the dry stone wall method, you may find it easier to add your organic materials as you go to provide support rather than adding these at the end for the mortar method.Once you have your basic shape laid out around the circumference, add a second tier of bricks, remembering the outside ‘wall’ of your spiral is lowest (e.g. 2 bricks high or perhaps 1-2 rocks depending on size – enough to retain your soil).
The middle will usually end up about 1m (2.5 ft) high with a central planting area, gradually tapering down in height on a light slope to the bottom. You can block it off or add your bog/pond at the base if using.
STEP 4: Add your organic materials & nutrition – for each of us this will be different, depending on what you have easy access to. Some people only add mulch or straw to their herb spiral and plant into pockets of compost. If you’re on a tight budget or this is all you have access to, then this system of ‘growing soil’ will work fine but ‘dead dirt’ is unlikely to bring you a successful outcome!
Rather than buying in a trailer load of soil from your landscape yard, you can make your own soil teaming with living microorganisms. Soil that has a good structure (a crumbly fine texture that holds moisture well) is ideal for healthy productive plants.
Good sources of organic matter that will build soil fertility include:well rotted manure, mushroom compost or even better, your own compost, worm castings from your worm farm moistened coconut fibre; and for lower layers use materials like leaf litter, well chopped prunings and dry grass clippings.
Other variations of a Spiral Herb Garden
(left: using brick; right: using bamboo)
