What's Up Wednesday

I can't take credit for these eggs, or even for the chickens that hatched them. I basically just want to share that my neighbor gave me some eggs from their chickens and that the eggs were delicious. How awesome is neighborhood bartering? More on this soon.

Oh, Oregano- You grow so well by the side of my house where I didn't plant you, and so poorly in my garden where I did.

The Cilantro I started indoors in January is now epic- it's being housed in the kitchen window until it's warm enough to plant outside!

That's right- those little green guys on stems are prehensile CHERRIES!

The raspberry vines are starting to form pre-rasperry clusters.
I Cannot. Freaking. Wait.

What's Up in your Garden Today?

Tour of my Urban Garden

I spend a lot of my time on this blog posting about my garden and the veggies & fruits within it. I thought I'd give an overview of all the food-growing space I have, so those of ya'll who are interested enough to visit again could better visualize the space!

We live on a small city lot, between two streets that forks out in a "V" shape. The lot is about 1/10th of an acre- pretty small! Right now, all of the edible gardening I do, minus some herbs like lavendar and russian sage, are in the backyard. Currently. nearly one whole side of the backyard is devoted to edible gardening. Here's more about the spaces I grow in, and what I grow there!

Vegetable Beds

Raised Bed gardens
First stop on the tour is my vegetable gardens, and my favorite part of my outdoor space!  My veggie gardening mostly happens in concrete block raised beds, which we installed over the past several years- first we started with just the "S" shape you see in the foreground of this picture. The next year, I added the little tail that extends it closer to the house, and then this past fall I added a whole other section that runs up the side of the house up to the front fence.  All in all, this area totals about 260 sq ft.


What's planted in this space is the bulk of the vegetables I grow throughout the year.

Staples always on my planting list include:
potatoes, onions (sets, seeds, or transplants), tomatoes, carrots, peppers, lettuce, bush beans, and garlic.

New additions this year include:
spinach, kale, leeks and sugar snap peas.

Asparagus bed

This season, I cultivated a 10 ft x 1ft Asparagus Bed on the Right side of the house. I haven't seen much action out there so far, but I'm hoping these plants establish. I chose two varieties- Jersey Knight, and Purple Passion. They're a nice addition to the variety of edibles I grow!

We'll see how they do. Anyone have any asparagus advice?

Space for Herbs
During the Spring-Fall, I start seeds indoors using my homemade seed starting shelves. During the Winter months, these shelves have another function- keeping alive more tender herbs that wouldn't produce well outdoors!

This is the first year that I bought/brought in herbs for the Winter, and while I didn't have enough to use them tpo often, it sure was nice to use a little homegrown oregano or thyme now and then!

I ended up planting all the herbs outdoors, in the holes of my cinder block raised beds!

Backyard Fruit

In my backyard, I have several fruit areas, where I've taken advantage of space and sun to grow some sweet treats!

Raspberries
As of this year, I have 7 black raspberry canes- 4 along the back inside fence, and 3 that I transplanted on the side of the house by my raised beds. These really produced for the first time last summer, and it was such a pleasure to walk out back and pick a few berries! The canes I have (not sure what variety I have) produce small, purple/black berries that are really sweet.

Apple Trees

In addition to raspberries, we also have apple trees (planted super-close to the garage for some reason) and several small blueberry bushes.

The apple trees produce small apples that squirrels love to pick off and throw around my yard and eat. This season is going to be the season that I show those squirrels who's boss. I want to eat a few apples, damn it!

Blueberry bushes
The blueberry bushes have been kind of overshadowed in weedy beds for the past several years so this year I dug them up and re-planted them where the majority of the raspberry canes are. I hope they do better in that location- it would be great to have a small, steady crop of blueberries.

I'm also supposed to be getting an apricot tree delivered soon- still looking for a home for that!



Dwarf Cherry trees
We purchased these two dwarf cherry trees last year although one was mis-labeled as an apple tree- whoops! Last year we harvest 1 cherry from each tree which cracked me up! There are lots of blossoms on the trees this year and they've grown some- crossing my fingers for like 8 cherries per tree this year!

In the future, I'd love to add some grapes, as well as some hardy kiwifruit. Both of those grow well on arbors and trellises and it is easy to find cold-tolerant varieties. It's important for me to not get too carried away though- I want to make sure I can manage the garden and plants that I have now and make sure they are healthy and fruitful!

What's Up Wednesday

This is what's "up" in my urban garden today!

The two dwarf cherry trees are in bloom. Last year each tree produced 1 cherry each, so I'm hoping for more like 10 each this year haha! They're now 3 years old so they're starting to branch out & produce more.

Garlic is looking good- I have 37 heads of garlic growing- hopefully that will be enough to last me through June of 2013! I purchased 4 delicious varieties from my local garlic friends/farmers- if you can find locally-grown garlic near you, it is a worthy investment for eating, and planting too!

Kale, lettuce, leeks, onions, and carrots are planted at the South end of this long bed in the picture. Sugar snap peas are sprouting down at the far end by the fence. 

Just harvested out of the root cellar/garden! I've been using up the last of the carrots, and pulling the few onions that didn't get harvested last fall to use as green onions. Soon I'll have fresh new onions and carrots.

All out of garlic :( I got pretty close to getting through the whole year using only homegrown/local garlic- I think that's sort of awesome. Garlic scapes will come up in June, so there's really only a 2 month gap that I have to "outsource" my garlic. Yeah!

An urban farm update

When I first started growing food for myself and my family, I had some lofty expectations. In some ways, I still do- I think its good to set your sights high! When I envision what I'd like my yard to look like in 3, 5 or even 10 years, and my sustainability goals associated with that, I get so excited! This month I was able to accompish a major goal off of the long term list, which is getting some fruit trees! I LOVE fruit and am out there at local orchards picking apples every season. I was holding back on purchasing fruit trees based on serveral perceived barriers: price and space.



Our new sour cherry tree!

I purchased an Early Richmond Dwarf Cherry and a Dwarf Honeycrisp Apple from Blocks Nursery in Romulus, MI. They had a good selection of fruit trees and I could have easily stayed there for 8 hours and spent a million dollars. I selected an apple tree because I love them, and a cherry tree because most cherry-picking farms I see are Up North so I think it will be nice to have some cherries in our yard! I kept my eyes on the prize and got out of there with the two fruit trees, 3 hostas, a flat of white alyssum, and 3 purple lupines for about $70! The fruit trees were on sale for $20 each which is wayyy more affordable than I thought they would be! Also, I looked up space requirements and decided that I do have enough space for 2-3 dwarf trees on my west side yard. Mike and I hopped out there and planted the trees, spaced about 12-13 ft apart.

The only thing I'm not sure of is pollination. The cherry is self-fruitful, but the apple needs another apple to bear fruit. I have crab-apple trees in my yard, but I'm not sure if those count. If not, I might be buying another dwarf Honeycrisp!

So folks, your dream of a little, urban orchard to call your own could be very possible! Maybe I'll see you at Blocks in the very near future :)