Why Build a Herb Spiral?
Step-by-Step Instructions for
How to Build a Herb Spiral
We first cleared out the weeds and laid down cardboard with enough overlap to suppress weeds in the area surrounding of the herb spiral. Some people wet the cardboard as it breaks down faster but we didn’t bother. Then you want to use rocks (or some people use bricks) and start making your shape by constructing the outer wall first. We made ours with a 1 meter distance from the centre of the spiral to the outer wall. Some people also choose to just pile a huge mound of soil and then wedge the rocks into it.
Then we made the outline shape of the spiral using the rocks and adjusted it if we needed to while filling it in with soil as we went. We chose slightly sandier soil as were growing a lot of Mediterranean herbs in the top layers.
Once you have the first layer of rocks you can add more dirt and then wedge more rocks to build a double rock wall.
Keep on filling the spiral with dirt until it’s level with the rocks. The uppermost top has a 3 layered rock wall to give the herb spiral more height.
Here’s what the herb spiral looked like the 2nd year.
Not all the herbs were perennials. Some of them self-sowed like the chamomille (and even ended up spilling all over the place outside the herb spiral). I’ve direct seed annual herbs like basil & cinnamon basil, dill and cilantro in the ‘blanks’ that you see here.
TIP
Don’t grow invasive herbs in your herb spiral. I made the mistake of growing mint and lemon balm in ours and it’s taken over! Make sure you keep certain herbs like sage or thyme pruned over time.
That’s it!
Best of luck building your very own herb spiral 🙂
Awesome!
What herbs did you end up planting where in the spiral?
At first we had a rosemary at the top but we changed it to oregano. Sage, thyme, winter savoury, echinacea, feverfew, lemon balm (too invasive), chamomille (self-sowed out of the herb spiral). I have a few blanks that I was planting basil in.
We’ve had the herb spiral for 5 years now and I would have so say because our family is now at the point of preserving lots of herbs for both medicinal and culinary purposes that the herb spiral is too small for us. It’s the perfect project for an urban backyard or if you’re happy growing herbs on a smaller scale 🙂
An herb spiral.
I love this idea, but is there much maintenance to the actual rock spiral? We live in Pennsylvania and foresee having to redo the spiral every spring due to the winter frost.
I feel that weeding in between the rocks is the most challenging part. The frosts are ok for many of the herbs, it depends on what you plant. We get months of snow and many hard frosts here.
Awesome thank you.