Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Veggie Garden


My backyard is quite small and my friend Ev's is tiny.

My yard has shrubs, flowers, an apple tree, pond, fire pit and work area.

Ev's yard has a swing set, playhouse, columnar dwarf fruit trees, BBQ, small veggie garden and an above ground swimming pool.

Any open space she had has been filled by their new pool. Literally!

I've been wanting to try vegetable gardening for the last few years but, as my yard has be designed to within an inch of it's life, there really was no space unless I redesigned it.

That was not going to happen!

Driving my afternoon bus route I would pass a large field beside a major highway with a big sign that proclaimed 'Garden Plots For Rent.'

I finally decided to phone this spring.

I won't tell you how much it cost me to rent it, because, depending on where you live you might very well find it an outrageous price.

The owner rototills for you and water from a dugout is included in the price.

If the garden grows well, it would still not be less expensive than buying from one of the cheaper grocery stores, but it would be cheaper than buying all the produce from the farmers market.

I was a little nervous about being able to maintain it so I talked Ev, who is my neighbour as well as my friend, into sharing with me.

Our plot is 15 feet by 50 feet and Ev gardens one quarter of that.


I like to use a hoe to weed.


Ev prefers to weed by hand.


Ev's daughter Alice was happy to bring the weeds to the compost pile. (For a little while anyways!)


This is my portion of the garden. I've planted, among other things, heirloom plum tomatoes, spinach, three colours of beets, corn and purple potatoes


Ev's garden has an awesome crop of carrots, spinach (already harvested), yellow zucchini, corn, purple potatoes and more.

We've both found it much easier to maintain than we it thought we would and are already considering a larger plot for next year.

We'll keep you posted.

4 comments:

Chandra said...

Yummy, we just enjoyed the first salad with lettuce from our garden last night. You can't beat fresh produce that you've grown yourself!

Anonymous said...

Aw - little Alice made her debut on a blog site! Grandma, are you reading this?

- Ev

Tamara Jansen said...

Your plot looks fabulous! Have fun in the garden

Eve said...

If I had a small space and I do, I would definitely do square foot gardening. It is so easy to set up the boxes...so easy to plant and if you mulch like I do,,you never, never weed,,just pick and eat. I feel so guilty to call myself a Gardner..Oh, and you don't need to dig before you set up your boxes either...I am 64 years old and this is the easiest garden I have ever had. And the most intensive. A square comes empty...replant it....you can see my step by step on my garden blog if you are interested. Check the older posts, I am into containers right now on the main page.

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