Once upon a time there was a garden. Well, there was a dream of a garden.
When we bought our current house in January 2007, I wanted to have a garden like the ones we had in Seattle and Boise. My husband, on the other hand, wanted to put in a pool.
Unfortunately, in the space where our respective dreams would fit, there was a ginormous tree that would block out all sun from my garden and dirty his pristine pool with lots of leaves and gunk.
Fast forward to August 2007 when we awoke to the sounds of this same tree crashing down in the narrow space between our house and the back fence. The only damage was a broken fence post and a warped gutter. On the plus side we had firewood for the winter (such as it is in Texas).
Then the race started as my husband and I starting thinking about what we would do in place of the tree. Luckily for me, it's soooo much easier (and cheaper) to install a garden than it is to install a pool.
This is the actual corner where the garden now stands.
Lovely shade, but not for a garden. Nice and green though.
This is looking the long way down the back of our property. The tree's canopy sure looks a lot bigger up close.
The beginning of the garden circa February 2008. We rented a sod remover and rototiller and sprained lots of new muscles we didn't realize we had as we attempted to turn lawn into eight 4' x 8' garden beds.
Notice the fence is still sagging from the tree falling on it and the grass is just a tad less green than it was when the tree was shading it.
By March 2008, we had all the beds in. We removed five sprinkler lines along the fence so that we didn't waste water trying to water a garden from sprinklers. (Think about it for a second - once the plants start growing, the plant nearest the sprinkler head will block all the water from the other plants. Sprinklers only work for short grass.)
We switched out the remaining sprinkler heads (seen in the garden path) for half-circles to water the grass to the left of the garden.
Notice the broken fence post has finally been repaired.
We had the three support poles for the peas and beans up by April 2008.
The shorter poles at the end of the beds held a zigzag of twine on which we hung old CDs. This was our scarecrow system which worked great at keeping the birds away to give the seeds a chance to grow.
Unfortunately, we kept them up a couple weeks too long, so it also kept the birds away from the pesty bugs eating the tender new plants.
By May 2008, we had a bonafide garden. The plants overgrew their beds so fast, in fact, we didn't have time to finish putting in the mulch along the paths before the pumpkin plants had grown into the lawn.
Big, showy pumpkin plants, but we didn't get even one little pumpkin all year.
June 2008 and we seem to have created a monster. The harvest from these eight beds kept us busy for months. This, of course, was before we ignored it completely in August when we had a thousand consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees (okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a thousand, but that's what it felt like).
You'll notice the tree is changing its mind and trying to grow back at the left of this picture.
In February 2009, we got to work finishing mulching the paths and added another level of timbers on the beds to keep the soil from flowing out during rainstorms. Of course, in the severe drought we're having, it hasn't actually rained, but you know, those hypothetical rainstorms.
We've also used the tree stump as the base of our fire circle.
As of last week, I'm happy to report that our 2009 garden is IN - fully seeded and ready to grow!
And what are we growing this year?
We'll have:
When we bought our current house in January 2007, I wanted to have a garden like the ones we had in Seattle and Boise. My husband, on the other hand, wanted to put in a pool.
Unfortunately, in the space where our respective dreams would fit, there was a ginormous tree that would block out all sun from my garden and dirty his pristine pool with lots of leaves and gunk.
Fast forward to August 2007 when we awoke to the sounds of this same tree crashing down in the narrow space between our house and the back fence. The only damage was a broken fence post and a warped gutter. On the plus side we had firewood for the winter (such as it is in Texas).Then the race started as my husband and I starting thinking about what we would do in place of the tree. Luckily for me, it's soooo much easier (and cheaper) to install a garden than it is to install a pool.
This is the actual corner where the garden now stands.Lovely shade, but not for a garden. Nice and green though.
This is looking the long way down the back of our property. The tree's canopy sure looks a lot bigger up close.
The beginning of the garden circa February 2008. We rented a sod remover and rototiller and sprained lots of new muscles we didn't realize we had as we attempted to turn lawn into eight 4' x 8' garden beds.Notice the fence is still sagging from the tree falling on it and the grass is just a tad less green than it was when the tree was shading it.
By March 2008, we had all the beds in. We removed five sprinkler lines along the fence so that we didn't waste water trying to water a garden from sprinklers. (Think about it for a second - once the plants start growing, the plant nearest the sprinkler head will block all the water from the other plants. Sprinklers only work for short grass.)We switched out the remaining sprinkler heads (seen in the garden path) for half-circles to water the grass to the left of the garden.
Notice the broken fence post has finally been repaired.
We had the three support poles for the peas and beans up by April 2008.The shorter poles at the end of the beds held a zigzag of twine on which we hung old CDs. This was our scarecrow system which worked great at keeping the birds away to give the seeds a chance to grow.
Unfortunately, we kept them up a couple weeks too long, so it also kept the birds away from the pesty bugs eating the tender new plants.
By May 2008, we had a bonafide garden. The plants overgrew their beds so fast, in fact, we didn't have time to finish putting in the mulch along the paths before the pumpkin plants had grown into the lawn.Big, showy pumpkin plants, but we didn't get even one little pumpkin all year.
June 2008 and we seem to have created a monster. The harvest from these eight beds kept us busy for months. This, of course, was before we ignored it completely in August when we had a thousand consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees (okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a thousand, but that's what it felt like).You'll notice the tree is changing its mind and trying to grow back at the left of this picture.
In February 2009, we got to work finishing mulching the paths and added another level of timbers on the beds to keep the soil from flowing out during rainstorms. Of course, in the severe drought we're having, it hasn't actually rained, but you know, those hypothetical rainstorms.We've also used the tree stump as the base of our fire circle.
As of last week, I'm happy to report that our 2009 garden is IN - fully seeded and ready to grow!And what are we growing this year?
We'll have:
- basil
- pole beans
- broccoli
- butternut squash
- cantaloupe melons
- carrots
- chamomile
- cilantro
- sweet corn
- cucumbers
- dill
- honeydew melons
- Jerico lettuce
- Drunken Woman lettuce (my favorite, just for the name!)
- Red Sails lettuce
- Salad Bowl lettuce
- Sweet Valentine lettuce
- Yugoslavian Red Butterhead lettuce
- marigolds
- yellow onions
- white onions
- blue oregano
- Sugar Bon peas
- Sweet Banana peppers
- Anaheim peppers
- Carolina Wonder peppers
- Sweet Bell peppers
- popcorn
- radishes
- spinach
- mammoth russian sunflowers
- tomatillos
- tomatoes
- watermelons
- zucchini squash
Is that enough?
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