Calling my garden an urban garden is a little misleading. I do live in Bean Station, TN, for pete’s sake, not exactly an urban metropolis. But I call it an urban or kitchen garden because of it’s unique small size and placement. It’s a 10×12 ft garden that sits right beside our garage. I finished planting this morning and wanted to tell you all about it. It’s my favorite project in a long time and I can’t wait to tend it, weed it and harvest it! It’s art and design, only better, because it’ll soon be edible!
We started by having a retaining wall built so that this area would be flat. Prior to that, it was a sloping dirt pile just dreaming of becoming a garden. It’s not the perfect ideal spot because it only gets about 6-8 hours of sun but we thought it would be worth a try to use every inch of space we have. We then had it filled with decent dirt but left enough room (~10 inches) so that we could add compost, horse manure (which I shoveled in a sundress and flip flops), sand and mulch. (I should add that I have a wonderful gardener who has helped us realize our vision for our landscape and he was kind enough to give guidance and help with this project too! Thank you,Terry)
For our 10×12 space, we added 2 small truckloads of organic compost, 10 bags of play sand, some decomposed horse manure and then tilled that 3-4 times before planting. I basically followed the directions on the plants and seeds for planting with the exception of the tomatoes. I wanted lots of tomatoes so I squeezed them in closer than recommended. We’ll see how it turns out but a blog reader, Andrea, recently commented that she does this on purpose because she likes smaller tomatoes. I’m praying it works and we get lots of small-medium tomatoes.
Here’s what I planted:
1. Peppers- I did a few green pepper plants along with jalapeños. I’ll be able to use these in my homemade salsa this summer!
2 and 3. Herbs—basil, thyme, parsley, cilantro, sage, rosemary, mint, and oregano.
4. Tomatoes—-roma tomatoes, german queens, heirloom stripeys, cherry tomatoes, and several other varieties that I can’t even remember. I LOVE tomatoes!
5. Lettuces and Greens—-swiss chard, kale, bibb lettuce, redina lettuce, mustard greens
6. Arugula and spinach
7. Cucumbers, summer squash and more peppers
I also have an Improved Meyer’s lemon tree in the corner and 2 David Austin Rosa Heritage climbing roses near the house.
I ‘dressed’ the garden with organic soil conditioner, which functions like a mulch to hold in moisture. It’s 50% pine bark and 50% compost.
So, there you have it.
Let the magic begin!
Grow, baby, grow 🙂