We dipped our toes into experiments in urban gardening last year. By mid-summer, we had an impressive tomato plant, a marginally productive pepper plant, prodigious catnip and mint and an anemic dill patch.

This year, we’re kicking it up a notch. I don’t think Ms. IS would react favorably if I pushed too hard in favor of a full permaculture designed, edible urban garden… but a few steps in that direction to accompany the (numerous) flowers? Yup, let’s do it.

Blueberries

I’m very excited about the prospect of grabbing a handful of blue gems to throw into my morning yogurt and granola routine. We found a variety that is relatively hearty, OK in partial to full sunlight. Our hope is that it can share this nook underneath the spiral stairs and in front of the climbing perennial that shares the space. Hopefully, we can train the climber around the blueberry and up the stairs and lattice of the porch. We shall see…

Strawberries and chive

I’m leaning on the permaculture concept of constructing “guilds” or groupings of plants, shrubs, trees, herbs that work together naturally with respect to pest control, fertilizer, pollination, etc. Strawberries and chive fit the bill here. The plan is to put them in a hanging trough on the railing of the porch, rather than in a traditional bed so the benefits are somewhat limited, but still interesting to learn a bit more and good practice for a future homestead.

Enclosed/raised bed

We had talked a bit about putting in some type of raised bed situation in the rear corner of the property. There’s not much space, there’s not much light and the soil consists of dirt plus hunks of concrete, old brick, pieces of glass, shreds of plastic, wire and other lovely surprises.

So naturally, I got in there and went to town. I had some left-over boards and a couple of pressure treated stump posts leftover from a previous project.

Here’s my linkin-log Franken-bed construction. I didn’t want to use tools extensively, so everything is just held in place with a few nails and pack snugly into the Earth. My thought is that I can easily abort and rip the thing out if we don’t want it any longer. I mean, it was dirt and weeds before so how badly can I screw it up?

A major concern at this point: the soil. See above. It…it is not good. Do I excavate deeper and buy/find a bunch of fill? Do I fill the bottom with stone and then potting mix on top? Hmmnnnnn.

Well, the answer, or maybe better put: this is what I’m doing did, right or wrong is to lay down a good layer (say 8-10 inches) of fresh fill from the country (thank you family that lives in the sticks!). Add a second layer of an additional 6 inches of potting soil, throw on worm castings to finish it off and we’re cooking. Well, no we’re planting, that comes first.

So, what to put in this thingy now that it’s done?!

As I mentioned, we are going to be constrained by the amount of sunlight (really, the lack of sunlight) of the physical space. It’s more like an alleyway between buildings than a yard, haha! But this is the hand that we’ve got so we’re going with it.

We laid out two rows. I put in some garlic bulbs and rounded out the first row with dill, arugula and chive (so much for the guild!). We have had some initial conversations about squash, eggplant and zucchini to be planted in the second row, but nothing is in yet so more to report.

The final touch (again thank you family in the sticks) is the “living carpet” of transplanted moss. Don’t tell the EPA, but I carefully took cross-sections of moss from a separate location and “planted” them along the step path. I have absolutely no idea if the soil conditions are favorable for it to take here, but I’m hoping it will like its new home and propagate. It’d be so cool if it filled in nice and thick and instead of what was once dirt, weeds, glass and concrete, it transformed into a spongy, green carpet that you could walk on barefoot to check out your plants or compost.

Time flies and we’ve already got some action coming up!!! These are purple string beans that popped up in hyper speed! I was tempted to do a time-lapse photography shoot to document their rocketing ascent, but… I got lazy so you’re just going to have to use your imagination.

We are ecstatic about our little experiment. It’s been a blast thus far learning new things, designing how we want to lay out the space and then getting in there and to make it happen. In the very least I look at it as an opportunity to learn new skills that could be deployed later a homestead, while slightly improving the property to the extent we can with our own two hands. If we can harvest a couple of things that are edible along the way, I’ll be even more excited.