The garden came before the guest rooms
Babylonstoren spent three years on its garden before it let anyone stay the night. The order is the part worth copying.
Babylonstoren is a Cape Dutch farm in the South African winelands, granted to a burgher named Pieter van der Byl in 1692. Karen Roos was editing a design magazine when she and her husband Koos Bekker bought it in 2007. She restored the white gabled buildings first, then asked the French designer Patrice Taravella to lay out the ground between them. The garden runs to about eight acres and holds more than three hundred varieties. All of them are edible or medicinal. Guests could stay from November 2010.
The garden was three years old before anyone slept there.
Doing it in that order
Most of us set a house up the other way round. The rooms get decided first, and what we eat and drink and breathe in them is whatever turns up afterwards.
Try it the other way for a season. Work out what is going into you, and let the room arrange itself around that. It is how I read a house when someone asks me in, and it is the reason my principles start with water and air rather than with furniture.
Only plants you would use
Roos set one rule for the garden: a plant has to be worth eating or worth using as medicine. Nothing there is grown purely to be looked at.
A windowsill can be held to the same standard. If you are going to keep a plant indoors, keep one you would cook with or make tea from. The same question runs through the Food area and through the plants I keep, and the shopping end of it is in the Food directory.
Water that has not travelled
The garden is watered from a mountain stream by gravity, through open channels running between the beds.
Water that has not gone far is easy to know. Water that arrives from somewhere else has a history you cannot see, and that history is the first thing I ask about in any room I am working on.
What to take from it
You are not going to build eight acres. The transferable part is the sequence. Sort out what feeds you, and let the rest of the house follow.
| Plant | What it wants | What you use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Mint | A pot of its own, since it spreads. Bright light, damp soil. | Tea, salads, yoghurt |
| Parsley | Bright light, soil kept damp. Cut the outer stems first. | Almost everything |
| Chives | Sun or part shade. Cut them and they grow back. | Eggs, potatoes, soup |
| Rosemary | Full sun. Let it dry out between waterings. | Roasting, tea |
| Thyme | Full sun, poor soil suits it, water sparingly. | Roasting, stews, tea |
| Basil | The most warmth and light of the lot. Keep it off a cold sill. | Added at the end of cooking |
| Lemon balm | Easy, tolerates part shade, spreads like mint. | Tea, especially in the evening |
| Bay | Slow and patient. A pot outdoors, or a bright cool room. | Stocks, stews, pulses |
The short answers
The same thing again, in the order people ask it.
What is an edible garden?
A garden where the planting is chosen for what it gives you rather than for how it looks. Babylonstoren holds the strictest version of that rule: across about eight acres and more than three hundred varieties, every plant is edible or medicinal.
What is a medicinal garden?
Beds given to plants used as remedies and teas, grown alongside the food rather than apart from it. Chamomile, lemon balm, calendula, sage and mint are the usual start, and most of them are kitchen plants as much as medicine-cupboard ones.
Which herbs are easiest to grow indoors?
Mint, chives, parsley and lemon balm are the forgiving ones. Rosemary and thyme do well on a sunny sill if they are allowed to dry between waterings. Basil wants the most warmth and light. Give mint a pot of its own, because it spreads.
How much light does a windowsill herb need?
Most culinary herbs want about six hours of direct sun a day, which in the northern hemisphere means a south or south-west window. In less light, choose mint, chives, parsley or lemon balm, which take a bright but indirect spot.
Can you grow herbs indoors in winter?
Yes, though growth slows with the short days, so cut less and water less. Mint, parsley and chives keep going on a bright sill. Basil is the one that minds a cold room, so move it away from a draughty window.
Why grow only plants you will use?
A plant you cook with gets looked at every day. It also gives the food an address: you know where it grew, what went into the soil and when it was picked, which is more than a label can tell you. The same loop, at the scale of a farm, is in the garden that feeds itself.
What order should you set up a home in?
Water, air and food first, then the room around them. Babylonstoren finished its garden three years before the first guest stayed, and the sequence is the transferable part.
Is stream or rainwater better for a garden than tap water?
Water that has not travelled far is easier to know. Babylonstoren waters its garden from a mountain stream by gravity, through open channels between the beds. At the size of a house, the same idea is rain caught off a roof, in a water butt or in a swale cut along the slope.
The property. Babylonstoren, Western Cape, South Africa. The garden of more than three hundred varieties, all edible or medicinal, and the watering by gravity from a stream off the Simonsberg, are described on babylonstoren.com. The 1692 grant to Pieter van der Byl and the 2007 purchase by Koos Bekker and Karen Roos are on Wikipedia and wine.co.za. Patrice Taravella's commission and the garden of about three and a half hectares are reported by House and Garden SA and the Daily Maverick. The opening to guests in November 2010 is from Babylonstoren's own press material.
Reuse. Quote any part of this page with a link back to it. Educational purposes only, and not a substitute for medical advice.