03 June, 2008

gardening

We've been doing a lot of gardening this spring, trying to turn the land around the house into a layered garden with hiding places for little kids and herbs and flowers.

This stump sits on the edge of a small parking lot next to the house. It's been full of weeds and gravel. I'm fairly happy with the transformation, as are the neighbors.

The most work has been creating this raised bed herb garden. It took me a couple days and nearly 3000 lbs of Pennsylvania field stone to form a half circle rock wall to hold the soil. Jack and Shannon from Stone Barns supplied most of the herbs for us (3 kinds of basil, 3 kinds of thyme, cilantro, parsley, tarragon, sage, rosemary, and more). This spot gets maximum about 4 hours of good direct sun, so we've hesitated to grow actual fruiting vegetables. But Jack brought us a hardy tomato from the farm to try out and we are also experimenting with a small pepper plant.

We lined the edges of the stone with wild violets dug up around the property and moss from the stream behind the house. So far everything is healthy and growing.

Oona too!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say that I just discovered your blog and it is such a delight! Little Oona Plum is precious and I love the natural, relaxed way you seem to approach parenting. What a beautiful family!