Frugal Babe

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A Picture From Our Back Patio

September 3, 2010 By Frugal Babe

For months now, readers have been asking for a picture of our garden.  Sorry it has taken me so long, but better late than never.  Across the front, the beds are filled with greens, beets, beans, peas, peppers, watermelons (we ate the first one yesterday – it was awesome!), and herbs.  The back row of framed beds has greens, onions, carrots and more greens.  You can see the patch of corn at the back left, and the beds with tomatoes are on the far left and the back middle, with wire fencing in them to support the vines.  Our potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are on the far right towards the back (behind the scarecrow).  There is a giant volunteer sunflower in the middle bed in the front row.  It didn’t start to get huge until the beans were mostly gone, and it’s pretty, so we let it stay.  In all, there are 27 veggie beds, all dug by hand to a depth of about 18 – 24 inches and augmented with lots of compost.  The orchard is off to the left and the berry patch is off to the right.  You can see a bit of the orchard in the picture, but not the berry patch.  In the bottom right corner is a blueberry bush, planted in a giant planter that we sunk into the ground.  Blueberries need very acidic soil, and our soil is alkaline.  So we filled the planter with peat moss and compost and buried it, to give the blueberry bush it’s own little acidic oasis.

When we moved in, the backyard was nothing but weeds.  My husband planted the grass from seed, and has tended to it ever since (no chemicals – everything in our yard is organic).  With the lawn in the foreground of the picture, it looks much bigger than it is.  In reality, we have a relatively small patch of grass and the majority of the yard is devoted to the orchard, berry patch, and veggie beds.  But when I tried to get closer to the garden with the camera, I couldn’t fit the whole thing in the picture.

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Filed Under: food, garden 12 Comments

Comments

  1. Pam says

    September 5, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    Love the scarecrow!

    Reply
  2. What Pigs Don't Know says

    September 5, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    Thanks! Looks great! Very jealous!

    Reply
  3. joe says

    September 5, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    very nice.
    lucky. wish i had that much land.
    you need fruit trees.
    also grow vegetarian protein… like fava beans… real easy to grow.

    Reply
  4. FrugalBabe says

    September 5, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Joe,
    Thanks! You can see a bit of our orchard off to the left side of the picture. We have 15 fruit trees, basically all the varieties that will grow in our climate (pear, apple, peach, plum, apricot, crab apple). We have a few varieties of beans/legumes growing this year, more planned for next year. I have about 75 lbs of dried beans in my pantry right now (chickpeas, black beans, lentils, pinto beans, red beans), so I’d say we’re set for a while on protein!

    Reply
  5. Nathalie says

    September 6, 2010 at 6:54 am

    Thanks! Your garden looks great! I was sooo curious :-) It is always great motivation to see other productive gardens; we grow quite a bit but could make much more out of our patch than we have so far. Our garden is quite a steep slope so we had, still have, to create levels, which takes ages, but we’ll get there. We also use nice wooden ‘frames’ for the raised beds.

    Reply
  6. Kay says

    September 6, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    Awwww! FB, that is so inspiring!!! That huge garden of yours sprang up only because of sheer hard work!! We just bought a house and will be moving in this winter. It’s a semi detached house in a suburb – so the backyard is just a typical sized one. I guess we’ll still be able to fit in a a couple of dwarf fruit trees and maybe a veggie patch. I’m going to look if there’s a community garden anywhere near where we’ll be living.

    Reply
  7. Kaytee says

    September 7, 2010 at 6:32 am

    Wow, it’s really flat there! What is that little structure on the left side of the photo? Is it a bee hut?

    Reply
  8. Molly On Money says

    September 7, 2010 at 11:20 am

    I’m very jealous- I have the land but not the water!
    With my cold frames it took me two days of digging out rock and replacing (shifting the gravel out) it with yummy dirt just for one 4’x8′ frame!

    Reply
  9. MK says

    September 7, 2010 at 11:12 am

    What an amazing garden you have! I currently live in a back to back townhouse (which means I only have a ltitle patio out front and that is the onyl side i have windows!) So no garden for me other than a few pots. I can’t wait to have an entire backyard to tend to! I love gardening! and I hope mine can look as nice as yours does one day!

    Reply
  10. Jaime says

    September 7, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    Thanks for the picture FB! Your backyard is gorgeous and it’s wonderful to see you guys really diving into your dream of a mini-farm type yard. :)

    Reply
  11. Frugal Babe says

    September 7, 2010 at 12:20 pm

    Kaytee – that’s where we store our hose. Underneath it, there’s a large hole we dug and lined with sand, and that’s where our watering system is controlled. We buried a hose from the house out to that little hose box, and then underneath the hose box there’s a 4 way splitter with four timers and four hoses running underground to four spots around the garden. We are toying with different ideas for watering, as the system we currently have waters not only the beds but also the space between the beds. We may put in individual drip systems on each bed, but that will be quite a project.

    Molly – Water is definitely an issue if you live somewhere like we do that gets very little rain. Our water bill has been about $160/month this summer (in our old house, with a tiny yard, it was about $90/month, although water was quite a bit more expensive per gallon there). Our grocery bill has dropped by about $300/month this summer, and we are having a blast growing our food. But I do wish it rained more here! When I look back on the work we did earlier this year to dig all those beds, it makes me tired just thinking about it. But in future years it won’t be nearly as difficult, as all we’ll have to do is loosen the soil and add compost.

    Reply
  12. Meg says

    September 7, 2010 at 7:36 pm

    I love it! Thank you so much for posting a picture. :-)

    Reply

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