Semaphoria's herb spiral garden

trying our hand at an herb spiral. while i am not particularly in to “sustainable” lifestyles and all that as compared to many of my portland brethren – there is something ultimately quite appealing about this particular form of permaculture. i am enough of a foodie to really want a happy healthy herb garden that will be at least semi-impervious to my inattention to basic needs such as um… watering.

so after a bit of rummaging about the web i convinced the husbot to help me rip out the zuchinni and tomato plants of years past (from the previous house owners) and erect an herb spiral in our little side garden plot.

steps:
1) we started with a cleared bed that was about 5×5.

2) we got some bricks (90 or so i think) with a little round post on each end and made a circle.

3) we filled the middle with cardboard (to block out weeds)

4) we made the spiral shape

5) we added height so the center was 4 bricks high, sloping to 1 at the end.

6) we put in big gravel and little gravel (for drainage)

7) we put in a good fat helping of compost from the pile

8) we added soil

9) we watered the whole mess down

10) we made a grid of herbs desired, sun requirements, and drainage/moisture requirements.

11) then plotted the best place in the spiral to plant each herb according to microclimate created by the structure. (dry at the top, full sun in the front, wet at the bottom, etc)

12) plant!

we used the following resources as guides:
http://welcometovoluntarysimplicity.wordpress.com/2006/12/10/how-to-build-a-herb-spiral/
http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2007/05/how_to_make_a_herb_spiral.html