While unable to work at my second most time consuming job, I developed a bit of unused space into a vegetable garden. I would not have done so if I had known how much work it would be, or how much of what seemed to be usable space was just trash, brambles and a shallow bit of soil on top of pavement. Alternatively, I should have had the main unpaved area bulldozed first.
Now that it is halfway through spring, this new vegetable garden is finally started!
1. Four decades of junk mixed with wicked brambles was removed to expose less than four hundred square feet of cruddy slope. Rain draining from the deck eroded a gully in the middle.
2. To the right, disfigured juniper should be temporarily obscured by cucumber vines expected to grow from seed sown just above a ditch. Indeterminate tomato vines will be added soon.
3. Across the road, more junk, weeds and brambles were removed from between a curb and fence, only to find that the area is paved to the fence! Pole beans will be pleased with the fence.
4. Posts supporting the deck had too much potential to ignore. Dragon fruit plants can climb them to the top and cascade downward. The posts are pressure treated, so will be painted first.
5. ‘Kadota’ fig can grow as a hedge where the outer surface gets sunlight under the downhill edge of the deck. The area behind it is too shaded to be useful. The area in front is for vegetables.
6. There are plenty of radish greens growing wild outside of the garden; but a few radish roots would be nice too. These are developing splendidly, and should be ready before anything else.
This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/
Tony Tomeo 
Wow, that really was a challenging space!!
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You can see that? When I look at it now, it does not seem to be challenging at all. It did not seem too challenging when I started either. It was what I found in between that made it so horrible. What a mess. I do sort of like it now, and would be pleased to get rid of that junk under the deck, just to pretty it up a bit more. We keep drainage pipe under there, but that tub of fittings can go.
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Fantastic Tony, what a lot of hard work though. Waiting to see it all come to fruition!
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Well, I doubt that the little bit of produce that such a small space can generate will be worth all the effort. It needed to be cleaned up anyway. Two young men who work here will likely take over when we are able to go back to work. Hopefully, the tiny vegetable plants will be established by then.
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You have been busy. Is this your garden?
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It is at work. There is not enough garden for all of us, but any of us can take a bit of the produce . . . when we are able to come back. Many of us have gardens at home too. I actually do not need much produce, since so much of mine grows wild in the forest.
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Lovely bit of work! I look forward to seeing those beans romping up that fence, and the cucumber vines smothering that juniper… Good luck with the harvest! 🙂
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I LOATHE fences. Since we need it here, I may as well make good use of it. Besides, the scenery within is not very appealing to the traffic out on the road. Beans will be a nice temporary hedge. (I hope to screen the view slightly with a few Arizona cypress, but that will take a few years to grow.) After relieving the junipers of the overwhelming bramble, I do want the cucumber vines to shade them too much. Cucumber foliage is not so dense that it is likely to offend the junipers foliage below, and will be gone by autumn. I want the junipers to recover where they are, so that they look good when not obscured by cucumber vine. I grew cucumbers in the exact same manner on similarly disfigured junipers at a former home, and it worked out fine. By the time I relocated, and no longer grew cucumbers there, the junipers were much more appealing than they were before I started exploiting them. Of course, the season for cucumbers was much shorter there.
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That is good use of existing structures.
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I lived in town for many years, so I know how to use fences, junipers and even pavement. At a former home, we planted pumpkins on the very edge of the garden, but let them grow out onto unused pavement. I did not want to remove the pavement because it was in such good condition, and I knew that whoever lived there after me would want it for something.
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Great ideas. I have to be careful about using the fence on the neighbors’ side, as they all don’t enjoy my enthusiasm for gardening.
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I sort of get it. I had neighbors with both Algerian and English ivies coming through the fences. Beans are another issue altogether. I sometimes wonder why neighbors who dislike what their neighbors do choose to live in ‘neighborhoods’ . . . inhabited by . . . well, neighbors.
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Nicely done. I can’t wait to see the produce…
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It got a late start, but I hope it makes up for it.
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You have been busy clearing space
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Yes, it was more work than it looks like. I should have gotten better pictures of it before. The bramble had reached up to the underside of the deck and was hanging down from the beam where I want the dragon fruit to grow.
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I like the good variety of stuff you planted there! 🙂
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Particularly #3 and #5 perhaps?
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It’s gonna be fascinating to see what you do with this space!
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I do not expect much here. It is a trashy location. I just developed it as a vegetable garden because the bramble was so nasty, and I wanted some vegetables close to where the crew works. It is not big enough to produce much, but I do intend to enjoy it for now.
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great effort, look forward to seeing it develop.
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Thank you. It was more effort than it will be worth. I would not have started it if I had known.
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