DIY Video: Rehab Your Herb Garden

With spring coming, one’s thoughts turn naturally to … Julie’s herb garden. Well, at least my thoughts. Julie makes dinner for me about three times a week, so you could say I have an interest in keeping her stocked with ingredients. The other day I was admiring her lovely raised beds when I noticed that for some reason nothing edible was growing in there. “Everything died but the mint,” she said, “and it’s thriving because it invaded the brick path.” Let’s fix this quick (before suppertime):

Do you want to see an easy way to overhaul your herb garden in one afternoon? (OK, I did it in under an hour—but I was hungry.) Watch my DIY Video below for step-by-step instructions:

Above: If your raised beds look tired, rip out last year’s stragglers and turn the soil. Dig down at least 12 inches. If your soil looks tired or the level is low, add more to create a friendly growing environment. Before you buy more, figure out how much you’ll need with a Soil Volume Calculator. Enter measurements—length, width, and depth—of your raised bed, and it will tell you how many cubic feet of soil to add.

Above: I planted a mix of herbs, lettuces, and flowers—including cosmos and edible nasturtiums—so Julie would have a cutting garden too. (I like to see a vase of flowers on the dining room table when I show up to dinner.) For a complete list of what I planted, watch the DIY Video below.

I planted seedlings from a nursery but you can also start your flowers from seeds; a packet of Cosmos ‘Sensation Mix’ is $3.45 and a packet of Nasturtium is $3.95 from Johnny’s.

Above: Here’s what you’ll need to overhaul your herb garden:

Materials List

• Seeds or seedlings, such as the Essential Kitchen Garden Herb 6-Pack, $34.95 from Williams-Sonoma.
• Shovel, such as Sneeboer’s Ladies Spade with D Handle, $134.20 from Garden Tool Co.
• Trowel, such as a Fisher Blacksmithing Large Trowel, $50 from Gardentools via Etsy.

Want to try more of our favorite spring garden DIY projects? See DIY: A Window Box Grows in Brooklyn and DIY: A Grapefruit Birdfeeder for Feathered Friends.