It was a few weeks ago, and I have been meaning to share pictures ever since, but have never found time to get an article written and posted. You would think that after freeing up the time I spent working on building the garden plot and getting the plants in, I would find it easy to write about it... hasn't seemed that way.
When we built the swimming pool a few years ago, I envisioned a garden plot between the pool and the fence. That's why we built-up that side of the pool...to allow us to have a raised-bed garden plot.
So, having come to resting places in various other projects (they're never really done are they?), I decided to build up that garden area this spring. In order to promote drainage while discouraging run-off, I used cinder-blocks as the main wall building material. I put it just at the level of the pool deck concrete, so that we can put our left-over flagstones on top of it so it will match the deck in height and appearance.
Of course, in the middle of all this work (and it was actually 2-3 weekends long, due to weather and other commitments), I forgot to take pictures to document the before and after. It finally occurred to me to take interim pictures when we had 3/4 of the topsoil in place.
We had a couple of sprinkler heads in that area. I raised them, and we are re-tasking them as dripper irrigation sources. That way, we can only water the plants we want to get the water and weeds will have to make do with rainfall. That probably means that they'll be stronger and more numerous than if we watered them, but the kids have to have something to do all summer, right? (jk, boys...you can stick to mowing)
Here's the finished product....planted and irrigated. We ended up with 10 Bell Pepper plants (yea, that IS a lot, but we LIKE them), 8 Tomatoes (see previous comment), some Onions, about a 2'x4' patch of Spinach, and a couple hills each of Zuccini and Crookneck Squash. I decided to trial a single Strawberry and a Cantaloup to see how they will react. If all goes well, we may do more next year. We'll also find out just how much garden space this is...ie did we crowd the plants or can we put more plants in that area.
We're still not sure that we want to be exclusively vegetable-oriented, since some native landscaping would also be nice. But, somehow, it seemed appropriate to be vegetable farmers this year. I'll keep you posted...I hope to give absolute rave reviews about the incredible success we are having. In case of abject failure (or lack of time) you won't hear back from me. :)
1 comment:
I love it! I'm longing for a garden, again. But didn't have the motivation to figure out the how/when/what of NC, in my rental home that we may leave before summer is over... Maybe next spring... I want a bell pepper, a jalapeno, onions, potatoes, squash, lettuce, cilantro, tomatoes, basil, oregano, and maybe carrots - hey, all this stuff has to grow somewhere, right? Why not NC? I hope yours brings much success. It sure looks good!
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