The North End Loft: organic gardening

Jul 19, 2012

My Urban Garden

One of the things I love about living in Idaho is the marked change of seasons and the rebirth of my garden each year.

Here are a few reminders of what my garden looked like when I first posted about it on my blog back in March, compared to what it looks like now. The lush green of summer has replaced the stark grey of winter.

The view of my neighbors' houses from my backyard deck is screened by the summer leaves on the trees now, and we all have plenty of outdoor privacy.

The bare raised planting beds of winter are full of summer herbs, flowers, vines, and vegetables.

And the heat-tolerant plants are thriving on the narrow south side of my tiny urban yard between the house and fence.

There are onions, marigolds, zinnias, basil and green peppers,

tomatoes,

carrots and beets,

oriental eggplant,

potatoes,

and green beans.

We don't have an automatic sprinkler system, so I'm it. Each morning I give the garden a deep drink of water and enjoy looking for the changes from the previous day. It's amazing how much can grow in a garden in twenty-four summer hours.

It's too hot here in midsummer to do much in the garden other than water and harvest, but when I got tired of seeing the ugly air conditioner over there in the corner, I whitewashed some old shutters to screen it.

I also made some directional signs inspired by some I saw on Pinterest. You can stand right next to these signs and see everything they point to because my yard's so small, of course. You sure don't need a sign to guide you.

But I just love the humor in that.

I found a bit more of my yard ~~junk~~ art while rummaging around in the shed. A favorite bird with a broken base perches on an old window frame leaning against the fence.

The family is done-up on a rusty metal plant stake.

A few dollar store tin stars hang on an old wood ladder trellis.

And a thrift store beer sign hangs on the deck.

Most of our hot midsummer afternoons are spent in air conditioned interiors, but in the evening when it cools off, we'll sit out on the deck and enjoy cold drinks and a barbeque, accompanied by fresh herbs and produce from the garden.

Next winter seems so far-off, but knowing that our warm green summer is just one of four very different seasons of the year inspires us to enjoy every moment of today.

Thanks for coming by to see what's been going on in my garden.
I hope you're enjoying your summer!

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Mar 11, 2012

My Vegetable Garden

My cottage sits on a postage stamp-sized city lot surrounded by stately shade trees. In spite of the tiny yards and shade, my North End neighborhood is very enthusiastic about urban gardening, and you’ll find many small vegetable gardens squeezed here and there.

My kitchen garden sits in a narrow south-facing side yard, the only sunny part of my yard. When I first moved here, almost twenty-five years ago, I had a wonderful garden that yielded baskets full of vegetables, but over the years the surrounding trees grew larger and as the hours of sun shining on the garden diminished, the yield declined. I eventually lost enthusiasm for growing vegetables, and the last few years only planted a few flowers there.

Recently, however, I’ve been reading about organic gardening, and my interest in my little garden plot has been rekindled. I’ve learned that while the lack of sunshine was responsible for some of the decline in my vegetable yield, I was also neglecting my soil and even harming it.

I had never added compost to my garden to feed the organisms that soil needs to nourish plants. In fact, I added a lot of chemicals that only boosted plant growth short term, while depleting the soil even more over the long run. I realized that over the years, I’d literally “killed” my garden soil. Even the earth worms had moved out because there was no food for them there.

I was so excited (yeah, I get excited by stuff like this) to learn what had gone wrong and that I could rebuild my garden soil just by feeding it! So last fall my husband and I built new garden beds, filled them with a pickup full of organic compost, and mixed it in well with the soil already there.

This is the soil with the truck load of compost mixed-in. I wish I had a before photo of the soil before we added the compost. It was gray and dry and cement-like. Yuuuk.

We wanted to spread some chicken poop on top (apparently, gardens LOVE chicken poop!) and let it rest all winter, but we were too late and the garden centers were out of it. So the garden slept as it was all winter long, waiting.

Yesterday, we went to a new organic garden center right here in our neighborhood (yay!) We bought some organic compost in a bag that has, not only chicken poop, but all kinds of good natural stuff that healthy soil needs to help support plant growth (like worm castings, bat guano, gypsum, kelp meal, oyster shell, lime and other good stuff.)

We opened the bag and spread the compost evenly out on the beds 2-3 inches deep.

Then we mixed it in with the soil.

Here’s what it looks like now. I wish you could feel it. It’s soft and airy and moist and it smells a little like the forest, so good! I just really get a charge out of thinking of this soil as a living thing, full of natural organisms munching on all that good organic mulch.

While we were at it, we covered the paths between the garden beds with clean (weed free) straw to keep the weeds down and our shoes from getting muddy.