So it’s been a month since I’ve blogged and I’m sure everyone is wondering what we’ve been up to (okay, as I’m not that interesting, I know you’re waiting to see what trouble Isderf has gotten himself into). We’ve actually been very busy building a garden. Now you’re all probably wondering why it would take us a month to build a garden (oh, and a chicken coop - but that’s another blog).
We moved into our current home about 5 years ago. Our home has a lot of mature landscaping, which means a lot of shade. The previous owners had a garden box in the backyard, placed in the only place that gets enough sun to grow anything. Unfortunately, with kids that like to pick things and dogs that like to dig, our garden didn’t produce very much the first year we tried (“Look mom, we’ve got tomatoes,” as my daughter holds up a tiny green tomato that she’s picked). So we gave up, turned that area into a large sandbox/playset and started making other plans for our garden.
Seeing that our backyard is mainly shaded and that we have kids and a dog running around, not to mention our new chickens, we decided that our front yard would be our best bet. Fortunately, we live in an area without CC&R’s and there are no city codes against front yard gardening.
So Isderf drew up some plans and we took some spray paint to our front yard (We got a lot of comments just from the sprayed grass - most thought the kids had done it, but I set them right and told them it was my husband). The front tree got a trimming and we pulled up half the grass.
We decided to install sprinklers within the boxes to make watering easier. Actually, we had someone else do that and then he had to come back when Isderf took an ax to one of the sprinkler lines (okay, he was aiming for the tree root that had pushed the line up to the surface).
I’m not going to complain about the sprinkler line though, cause he did a great job on the garden boxes. Not only did he build them all by himself, and all in one day, but he also got the cedar for them at a great deal through craigslist (with enough left over for the chicken coop).
I think we’ve met more neighbors in the last month than we knew from the last 5 years, just by installing those garden boxes. We tried to arrange the boxes in such a way that it would look decorative and not cause all our neighbors to egg the house. I think we succeeded. A few neighbors that thought it was a good idea while in theory have since told us that they were a little apprehensive about it until they saw the final product.
We’re very happy with the results and have all the boxes planted with vegetables and flowers. This fall we’ll plant a cover crop and some winter hardy plants, and then bulbs and garlic for the spring. By doing this, we hope the boxes will be both practical and decorative, keeping our neighbors from rebelling.
In true Isderf fashion, we’ve already got more plans on the drawing board. Isderf and I think the grass under the tree needs to go, but we’re not sure what we’ll replace it with - maybe a picnic area!
