Herb Garden

 My vegetable garden is a large area of raised beds, 

fruit trees, grape vines and of course lots of vegetables and herbs

 I have six raised beds made from stacked stones all found here on our property.  

Each bed is about 8 x 10 feet and supplies us with an endless assortment of vegetables 

through out the year.

I usually mix herbs in with the other veggies and still do that 

but I decided is was high time to give the herbs a lovely little spot all to themselves

 I like the idea of adding height to a bed by using pots and barrels.  In fact, I like pots scattered about the yard in interesting ways to keep the garden playful and to add color into the mix.

For those that have read this blog for a while you may remember when I planted the lavender garden. Part of the design was to incorporate these inexpensive wine barrels and fill them with flowers

The barrels are filled with geranium now and bloom almost continually throughout the year 

 The lavender is just about ready for it's first bloom of the year

 Here the geranium filled barrels are peeking above the lavender

OK.....now back to the herb garden

The urn shaped pot in the center is filled with creeping oregano.  It can be planted as an ornamental but you can snip it off and use it in your sauces etc.

Another small decorative idea I used are these 2x2 stakes place in a grid pattern 

and topped with tiny vintage green house pots

The pots actually tend to keep 

the squirrels and raccoons out of the beds

The raccoons have played with the pots on a couple of occasions and I have found them broken in the morning but they have yet to actually climb into the bed and dig around.

I saw this idea on an English gardening website 

and though it was pretty ingenious

The herbs are all placed symmetrically and include 

sage, oregano, lavender, society garlic, rosemary and 3 or 4 varieties of thyme.

Society garlic (tulbaghia) is a perennial with pretty lacy purple flowers.  

The leaves have a really onion-ey smell and can be cut and used in cooking.  

They make a pretty cut flower for arrangements too

The oregano is great in sauces or just tossed into a salad mix

The thyme varieties were planted all along the edge of the bed 

and then criss crossed diagonally

I'm not sure if I will let the thyme spill over the edges 

or try to keep it neat and tidy...what do you think?

Either way...it smells heavenly and it is one of my most favorite cooking herbs.

I have used thyme in my large pots of color along our driveway too 

and it flowers with delicate lavender blossoms that cascades over the edges of the pots.

I really like this herb garden!

You could try this in a very small yard too

or 

how cute would this look along a walk way at your front entry?

Have a great week

&

Happy Gardening

Spring Green

 A weekend drive

 This is a working ranch about 10 minutes from my home

heading South toward Santa Paula

 We usually drive out this way on Saturdays 

to our favorite little burger joint (picnic tables)

for great burgers (they grind their own beef)  

great milk shakes  (no body does malts like this any more)  

and awesome fries...yum

 I am always inspired along this drive by the beauty of the Oaks in the hills,

 the  amazing clear blue sky and the vastness of the ranch land...

and today

the beauty of spring 

 These are walnut trees, perfectly spaced,

 aligned like wooden soldiers

soon to be green and loaded with fruit

The yellow mustard won't last long 

but who really cares?

today it is beautiful and perfect

and it reminds me 

to be thankful 

Spring!

lavender

lavender season ended for the most part 

about a month ago
in mid July

the lavender garden was really quite beautiful and more importantly the bee's were in heaven....

 I am really considering getting some bee hive boxes for the orange orchard

most of my lavenders planted throughtout the property is the Grosso variety
which provides the essential oil for use in soaps, lotions etc

It is very tall and spikey with long narrow clusters of blue grey flowers

just walking through the lavender 

gives off that amazing earthy scent

if is wasn't so full of bumble bees it might be fun to have a chair in the middle of the plants! 

there are actually quite a few plants that we have that are suitable for drying
 and I tried a few things out earlier this summer

but the lavender is hands down the most fun to dry 

and I really love having it in little bowls in the house

we had some rather mild weather in July followed this month
by a really nasty heat wave...but the lavender is still holding up 

 this large bed is a huge drift of about 100 or so plants...

in the center of the bed are some old wine barrels

planted with geranium and willow tertuers

the geranium are just popping up above the spikey blue stems

this is what Grosso looks like dried

I wrap it with butchers twine and hang it for about a week or so 

lavender is really

wonderful to photograph too!

now on to the harvest

next post....ideas for using lavender to give as a gift

hope you are staying cool ; 0 )

kelley