Herbalicious

It is all good and well to have an organic herb garden, but something that makes a garden, any garden, extra special, is to shape it and encourage wildlife in such a manner that you are creating a little living and functioning eco-system.

At my parent’s place where they have a beautiful large fish pond right next to my mom’s herb garden, our conversations are often interrupted with the beautiful “bloop-bloop” of the little frogs and the deep croaking of the larger bullfrogs in and around their garden. With all the rain we’ve had in Randburg the last while, and I guess having our complex built quite close to a stream, we have even had our fair share of frogs hopping around our garden.

Wanting to encourage these creatures into my herb garden, I thought I’d better try and find a way to create a hide-away for them. A broken terracotta pot I had lying in my garden inspired me to make them a little “frogitat” – a cool place to rest during the heat of the day and a safe space to hide from dangerous creatures (such as my jack russels who find the frogs just fascinating )

Why frogs are good for your garden:

• They can eat many insects which can become pests if not kept in check
• They are indicators of good environmental health of your area
• They may forage on decaying plant matter (especially vegetables which won’t be fit for humans any more)
• Children benefit from interacting with frogs

Considerations:

• If you have a pond, great, but sometimes just providing refuge for the frogs as they move from one area to another is perfect too
• Frogs can become noisy, so check with neighbours if they’d mind your froggy house
• Rather than bringing frogs into your area, encourage them to come to you – unless you know very well which frogs are suited to your environment

Here’s how I did it:

Materials needed:
	Broken terracotta pot Acrylic paints Varnish Paintbrushes
Step 1 : Paint your pot  Step 2 : Add finishing touches & varnish Use your imagination and paint your pot however you wish – I decided to stick with a nature-idea to fit in with my herb garden. Creative husband of mine thought that he’d make a sign to let the frogs know there is a safe “home” for them
Step 3 : Choose a suitable spot in your herb garden and place your frog hideaway

Tags: ecosystem, frog, habitat