Well, Ms. Jeannie has done it. She has finally planted all the garden seeds that she  had ordered from Botanical Interests three weeks ago.

She has been working on this goal bit by bit every few days, but Monday’s gorgeous weather really got her motivated to finish up.

At market last weekend, she bought some pre-started herbs for her garden (dill, rosemary, basil and mint) and wouldn’t you know, a few extra plantlings just happened to jump into her basket during that shopping trip too. So 4  jalapenos, 1 red bell pepper  and two tomato plants  round out the garden complete.

So in addition to her six containers full of sunflowers,  a 4′ x 5′ sunflower patch and her newly finished 10″x 12″ vegetable, flowers and herb garden, Ms. Jeannie is well on her way to being a farmer!

In the 10′ x12′ patch, she mounded the herbs in the center of the patch to give the garden a little interest as everything starts growing out. She lined the base of the herb mound with rocks and lined her pathway in old bricks that she had lying about in the garage.

Until she gets a fence up she has blocked off the sections in her garden with fallen sticks from woods behind her house.

Ms. Jeannie likes to halfhazardly organize her garden thoughts on paper before she plants, so she can keep her seed plans organized while she’s planting. On paper the garden plan looks like this:

As Ms. Jeannie was planting, she started thinking about the garden of her dreams and what all that would/could include. Years ago, she read a beautiful garden coffee table book called Venzano: A Scented Garden in Tuscany about a couple who bought a 12th century monastery in Italy and turned part of it into a nursery.

It is a gorgeous book and a gorgeous story.

Ms Jeannie is in love with the rustic pergola above. She has spent many a daydream trying to incorporate something similar into her own garden plan. At Venzano, it is used to shelter the herb garden.

Sadly, due to financial issues, the couple had to sell Venzano. It was bought by someone but the nursery is no longer in operation and the residence is private.

But thanks to the book, Ms. Jeannie can recreate the look of Venzano in her own garden. In addition to the splendid pergola above, Ms. Jeannie would also incorporate these dreamy elements that are available through Etsy.com…

Ms. Jeannie is also in love with the twig style  fences. In almost all the how-to guides on building a twig fence you can find the follwing verbage: challenging, impractical, un-sturdy, purely decorative, non-functional.  Perfect!  Ms. Jeannie’s  on a mission to change all these negatives into positives and makes the world’s first easy, durable, functional twig fence!

She just loves the look of them, so maybe her passion alone will navigate her the tough parts. This is the kind of look she aspires to:

Wish her luck! Projects updates to follow soon!