backyard garden, take 2.

while living in syracuse, i became a huge fan of gardening.  we always had small container gardens, but once we renovated our backyard and put in a few raised garden beds, the gardening monster inside me went bananas (or basil, tomato, summer squash...).

so last year, needing to scratch my itch, i attempted a container garden once again.  we had a couple tomatoes, but mostly herbs and while it wasn't much, it was something & made our apartment feel a bit more like a home.  i boasted of my hard work capturing the one and only photo of my attempt of a garden & within a couple months, everything withered and died.  it was a sad day in san diego.

so while on this crazy spring-cleaning organization kick, andrew and i decided to tackle our back patio.  the space is super tiny with basically enough room for a grill, umbrella, surfboards and our four bikes (in all seriousness, who needs four bikes?).  while cleaning everything out of the space, moving our bikes into storage and rearranging the little space available, andrew suggested we try adding a couple raised garden beds.  i, needless to say, was thrilled.

that weekend we ran to home depot & after talking over our plan with my dad, decided to build the raised beds out of pine.  at $5 a pop (for each 1x6), we were able to get 2 raised beds made for a little more than $25.  with the help of a nail gun and a chop saw, the project took a little less than 3 hours to pull together and each box is about 3 feet wide by 1 foot tall.  they're compact, but perfect for the space we have.

once in place, i lined each box with landscape fabric and filled the boxes with about 3 cubic feet of soil & planted the veggies and herbs i picked up at our local farmers market.  since the garden is small, i tried to plant things we eat regularly (heirloom tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, basil, kale) and chose an "out-of-the-box" veggie to try...in this case, broccoli (out-of-the-box because i've never grown it, not because we never eat it!).

for now, the plants seem to be enjoying their little home.  they have plenty of sun & water & only time will tell if this little urban garden will be a success.  fingers-crossed!