Fall Garden 2022

This is my happy place. When I need to calm down, or take a break, rest, or recharge in any way; this is where I go. Its where I bring visitors and show off to the kids and grandkids. I visit it first thing in the morning and the last thing before dark descends. We had a good rain, one that was slow and gentle enough to soak into the ground rather than ran off; it was a good time to take pictures. 

But before I show you around, I guess I should mention the fact that we moved here 2 1/2 years ago. My how time flies! We moved in January, and I began work on the backyard late spring. There was nothing planted here at all, not a tree or any kind of bush. The ground cover was granite rock, a common cover here in Phoenix. I was excited to have a blank canvas! I planted a few things that all quickly died.  Then, I found out from a neighbor that the entire front and back yard had been sprayed regularly for years and years with an all-vegetation killer to keep down the weeds! 

Dear Lord, what had we done! One of the main things we looked for before buying a place was a backyard with enough room to have my dream garden and now that seemed it might not happen. Who knows how much of that poisonous residue was left in the ground.  I began to look for what I could do to remedy the situation.  My original plan had been to cover the backyard in a thick layer of wood chips and then plant the entire yard. I had visions of all the little vignettes I would create, food forest style. I decide to go ahead with the wood chips hoping that the microbial activity from the breaking down of the wood chips would heal the ground, and then I spent summer watering the wood chip covered yard well, hoping to wash the chemicals away. 

In July, I planted some black-eyed peas to see how they would grow. Most of them survived but were very small and didn't produce any pea pods. In the meantime, I was getting to know the neighborhood and I found that I would be dealing with a lot more pest than I had expected. We have rabbits, we have racoons, they've only visited the front so far. There have been reports of Javalina though we haven't seen any, there are the ever present birds, and one nemesis that I really really can't tolerate: rock squirrels! 

I will get into why the squirrels are so terrible another time, but in light of all the possible or probable issues of pest and chemicals I knew I needed to change my gardening plans. I would need raised beds and an enclosure. And so, that is what we made. Its critter proof! Only the smallest of birds can get in and that's fine because they eat some bugs. 

I did go ahead and plant some open areas because I just can't help myself, and also as an experiment to see what would survive and what would be eaten. Things grew very slowly at first, but this last spring things began to really take off. The wood chips seemed have worked! Now my front yard is a whole other story, there are no wood chips there, just the rock. I planted two trees, one of them a peach, and boy are they pathetic looking! The chemicals have really done a number on them, I'll show you in another post. 

So, that brings us to my backyard garden as it is now 2 years later, October 2022. I'm still working on it as time money and energy is available. Here are some pics. 

The structures are portable carports that have canopy's over them. They are available at places like Home Depot or used on Offer Up. We found what we wanted on Offer Up. We covered the structures with 1 inch chicken wire. They were taller when we got them, but the man of the house cut the sides down so they wouldn't be an eyesore to the neighbors. The sides are a little under 6 foot tall. The large one is 10 foot wide by 20 foot long. With all the beds together in there I have about 200 square feet of planting area. 

The neighbors were throwing out this security door and it worked perfectly for the garden entrance.

This bed contains asparagus, basil and tiny inch tall beet seedlings. I'm hoping to have enough to can some.

At the far end I have strawberries, a swiss chard, jalapeno pepper and at front there is a collard green that was actually planted last fall and survived the summer. There are various lettuces and greens just beginning to grow throughout the bed.

The sweet potato bed with a little okra peeking through. Typically, I would have harvested the potatoes a couple weeks ago, but they don't seem to have developed very well yet so I'm waiting another couple of weeks. I may get surprised and find giant tubers in there!

This bed also has sweet potatoes growing, all volunteers! I have a lone okra there and plan to plant regular potatoes in a week or so.

This bed has yard long beans that are really taking off. Next to them are snow peas, and in the front are turnips.

 

This bed is a bit of an experiment. It's large, 8 ft by 8 ft. In the center I planted sweet peas at each trellis support. Under that is alfalfa; alfalfa is also sprinkled throughout the bed. This last summer I broadcast pinto beans from the grocery store and covered them with compost. Some of them grew and are just now starting to look happy. There is also marigold scattered throughout as well as daikon radish. I have little spots of Japanese mustard, purple mustard, collards, kale, dill and celery. The back of this bed this contains okra and calendula. I think you would call this chaos style of planting as I just scattered seed s randomly without much of a plan. I'm excited to see how it grows.

I'll show you around the rest of the yard another time. What's your favorite garden plan, have you ever tried chaos gardening?  Thanks for visiting!

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