One of the benefits of my garden changes

In my venture into permaculture I made several changes around the gardens. One of the changes was to incorporate zones into my gardens. This entailed figuring out what plants/things needed to be closer to the house for easier access throughout the year.

First I moved my herbs to right in front of the house. I have been posting about how much easier it is to get at herbs still growing when they are right outside the front door. Well, that only works so long as you can actually see them. When they are covered by about a foot or more of snow, it becomes a little more difficult.

I can remember my Aunt Ida May, up in Gardiner, Maine, going out into her gardens in the middle of winter to shovel out her Brussels sprouts to serve with a great homemade meal! She would have benefited from the zone idea so as to not have to struggle through about 50 feet of gardens to get to her vegetables!!!

I will work on seeing what herbs might be viable under the snow, but not until after the holidays. Spent about an hour starting to dig out the hot tub yesterday, and that was hard enough with all the snow here!! But once we get it snow free it will definitely be worth it. There is nothing better than soaking in a hot tub in the midst of snow!! And when the snow is falling, it becomes a very spiritual experience!!!

So here follows a picture out my sunroom door. The stairs go out to the garage and then on to the gardens in the back. Luckily I thought far enough ahead and moved an old garbage barrel right behind a lilac bush to provide a place for out compost during the winter.





Now John doesn't have to plow a path to the compost bin!! I found that we needed to drill a few holes for drainage in the bottom. Once I got the snow cleared off the top it was so much easier to use than trudging out through all the snow to get to the larger compost pile!