The Local-est of All: My Backyard

You can’t get more local than growing food in your own back yard.  Well…to be perfectly accurate, in my case it’s my side yard.  Quite a few years ago, before we re-built our garage and totally re-landscaped our house, I decided I wanted to have a garden.  As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up with a huge vegetable garden, a strawberry patch, raspberry bushes and a grape arbor.  My current back yard is not big enough for my son to even have a satisfying soccer kick, so I had to scale back.  I had seen models of raised gardens around town, but was always put off by how dingy the boards look after a couple of seasons.  Never one to do something halfway, my husband found some salvaged street pavers and made a beautiful 9’ x 5’ raised bed.  I found tomato plants, some from a friend who had grown them from seedlings.  I gleefully stuck my own seeds in the ground—beans, eggplant, melon--and waited.  I watered.  I waited.  Eventually, some little plants came up.  The tomato vines wound their way around everything else.  The broad eggplant leaves became lacy with some bug infestation.  I weeded, I waited.  After weeks and months of tending my beautiful little walled garden, the yield was….well….pitiful.  Well aware that we were fighting against the shady nature of the back yard, we didn’t know that the beautiful tree creating that shade was also poisoning our garden. Juglone, a chemical emitted by the black walnut, wreaks havoc on most anything growing below it or around it.  After two seasons of trying to find hardy plants resistant to juglone, we gave up, took up the pavers, and joined a CSA.

Last summer was the first year I didn’t join a CSA, mostly because I would be gone for most of the summer, and my husband would have been inundated with produce he wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with.  I missed the weekly haul.  When I returned from my trip, I went to the farmer’s market and paid a small fortune for vegetables I know are ridiculously easy to grow in our climate.  I vowed that this year, 2014, I would once again plant a vegetable garden.  We’ve been saving compost for quite a while, and I’ve had my eye on this sweet little spot on the south side of the house.  It’s currently got all kinds of flowers and ornamental perennials, but it’s low on shade, black walnut-free, and—now, more importantly—a dog-free zone as well.

Trouble is, I don’t know the first thing about how to build a raised bed.  Hubby used all the salvaged street pavers to make a path and retaining wall in our back yard.  I’m sure we’ve got the wood, but a handy-person I am not.  Planting time will coincide badly with Hubby’s end-of-the-semester PhD-ing, so I can’t really rely on him to build the thing.  So…I will do this the same way I do anything:  I start on the internet.  “How to build raised garden beds” yields a zillion sites and lovely photos.  (I mean, just look!  Here!  They’re all wonderful!).  It’s early April, and raining, and I’m dreaming of getting my hands and arms dirty in all that beautiful soil.  I’m dreaming of sun-ripened tomatoes, flavorful green beans sautéed in garlic ramps, leafy greens, and piquant peppers.  Surely my enthusiasm counts for something!  I still have some time, and lots of resources at my fingertips.  I’m sure I could find something at our local salvage yard if only I can think creatively.

I think they have old bathtubs for sale…