It's Been a Long Time Coming -My Garden as a Work in Progess

Where my garden now stands, fall of '11 with weeds taller then I am

When I purchased my house in the fall of 2011 the yard wasn't quite a blank slate. It was a blank slate with weeds all over it. The 6 foot tall variety in places. It was also mostly unfenced. What this picture unfortunately doesn't show is the 10' pile of trash that was in the yard. It wasn't just trash trash. You know, the kind that you put out every week. This pile of trash was special. It was the result of a decade long tradition of the block to dump their stuff in the lot that now belonged to me. My one consolation is that I used that pile of trash to effectively negotiate the sale price of the house. It was full of old tattered tarps, truck hoods, gnarled chain link fence and barbed wire. Intermingled in with all this was normal every day trash, tangled in the barbed wire. Oh and creepy dolls. This process of clearing out the yard took most of my time and mental and physical energy for the first year and frankly burn me out from the whole idea of putting in my dream garden.

Garden plans, drawn out spring of '12

Planing Out My Garden

Even though I was completely burnt out from the actual building of the garden space I was determined to have it move forward. This page has been referred to many times over the past few years, even by Phin with a green colored pencil to highlight notes. One of my favorite things to see happen is having my garden turn out nearly as planned long ago. Even better is to see the organic additions that have been added on top of the original, rigid utilitarian design. Allowing for that growth and change is a major part of my intended aesthetics for the garden. Plan for the unplanned. Let it reflect the mood of the moment, of the process. Always giving room for mistakes and running with them. Some of my favorite elements of my garden occurred due directly to mistakes and miscalculations. 

Garden layout spring of '13

Laying Out the Garden Boxes

Last spring I started to lay out the garden boxes and fence for the garden space. Building in the chicken coop into the garden has been such a fun aspect to the garden. It has also been one of the best decisions for the sustainability of the garden, which I discuss in more detail here. I also got our composter going and getting some good prep work prior to getting plants this year.

Working on my garden trellis spring of '14

Details on My Garden Trellis

One of the happy realizations that I had as I was looking at leftover 4"x4" scraps from my trellises was that i could easily cut out wedges for small trinkets, art, and small plants to decorate. This like everything else is a work in progress. The ladder and the pneumatic staple gun (one of Emma and my favorite tools) are still out.

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