DIY CD Rack turned Herb Garden

After last week's blog post asking you where you were, Spring, perhaps you are indeed showing your sun shining face...finally!  We are just waiting for some sunshine, some warmer weather and the chance to get outside :-)

This time last year we were excited to make a start on our first garden.  We had moved into our condo when we were married at the beginning of Autumn, and with Winter soon approaching we didn't actually do much on our balcony, apart from the bbq and a couple of chairs of course!  So last Spring was the beginning of our gardening adventures in our 'garden'... or rather concrete space that we are actually very fortunate to have a large version of!

We knew we wanted some flowers, but with no flowerbed this wasn't our main priority.  What we really wanted was stuff to eat!  Herbs that we could use for cooking... real life edible produce rather than just flowers that looked pretty!!

We had the perfect item in storage (thanks to my grandmother-in-law for holding onto that in my 'room' for me!) and were super excited to convert this old CD player to a herb garden!

I had owned this CD rack since I moved to Canada when a neighbour in the first apartment I lived in was getting rid of it, but it was a perfect addition to my little basement apartment for some shelving.  After moving into our condo we had no real need for it ... until now!

This started off a nice royal blue colour, but it wasn't really the look we were going for on our balcony.  And we thought we should probably weather-proof it a little.

We chose a exterior waterproofing paint in a nice earthy brown colour that would match anything.  I sanded off some of the blue paint, just to rough it up a little and then over the course of a couple of days I painted 3 coats of the brown.  I made sure to get right into the inside corners to get a full seal everywhere.

Once everything was dry we put gravel down at the bottom of each section, then soil, then the herbs themselves!

We actually planned it so that the nearest herbs to this edge (which is closest to the sliding door entrance) were the ones that needed the most watering, the middle ones only occasional watering, and the final ones hardly any at all!  Although, our balcony is facing west and gets some SERIOUS late afternoon heat in the Summer months so we did have to make sure the English herbs in particular weren't drying out!

We planted:

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme (♫ Scarborough Fair in anyone's heads?!)... Dill, Stevia (we had big ideas for iced tea and baking substitutes!)... Tarragon, Mint (used in my Summer Citrus Cake)... Basil, Chives, Lemon Thyme, Cilantro and 2 Strawberry plants.

So whilst the weather is still not quite good enough to grow these again yet, we had a lot of fun with this DIY Herb Garden project last year and the CD rack is still out on our balcony looking good, just waiting for it's herbs back!  

Bring on Summer!