Our Suburban Garden

We like fresh vegetables, and nothing is fresher than picking vegetables from your own garden.  Because we live in Subdivision, and have a unfenced yard in a community with rules, we had to get creative about how to plant a garden.  We choose to not put in a flat tilled plain garden or 4x8' growing beds, my brilliant husband built landscaping beds around the house, patio, and deck and planted them with herbs, fruit and vegetables.  The yard slopes, so the planters around the patio are tiered.  We have 3 dwarf fruit trees, blueberries bushes, rhubarb and a number of perennial herbs mixed with annual vegetables as our back yard landscaping.

Her is a view of the planters around the patio (before the weed whacking was done)  Top tier has radishes, buttercrunch and blackseeded simpson lettuce, spinach, broccoli, squash and onions.  The lower tier has cucumbers, peppers,and tomatoes. In the background you can see our pine tree and daisy field.  The other corner of the yard has a butterfly garden.

This year the beans are growing along the back of the house. Last year the tomatoes were here, and the year before we had pole beans on a trellis in this spot.

The oregano, rhubarb and the cherry bush have been in this planter 2 years.  We did get to harvest about 4 stalks of rhubarb this year and expect more in years to come.  The cherry bush will probably produce a crop next year as well.

It is the end of May and already we are harvesting. The herbs, oregano, chives, and cilantro we have been using for several weeks.  The first planting of radishes have been gathered and the second is about ready too.