Our Urban Food Garden - 2013 | Page 5 | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

I thought you might like them! My buddy in town in a similar mindset was super stoked when I told him about them.

We picked them up at a local garden center. $25 for the male/female pair, and they are a couple years old at this point. You can start from seed/root if you want, but it takes a while to get them rolling. These should be just on the verge of their prime growing years.

Expect 10 to 20 feet tall, 5 to 10 feet wide. We are hoping to keep ours on the low end of those dimensions.

They are very resistance to disease, etc and are apparently steady producers. Good to zone 4.

A quick vid...

Time for a long overdue update. Lots of action!

We built the beds a few weeks ago. I found a guy with a food board foot price on white cedar, bonus points that he delivered cheaply as my honda civic was not going to be helpful here. Beds are double stacked and I just metal strapping to tie the level together.

Added dirt and compost from a local garden center.

And mulched over with straw.

Built our trellis for the beans and peas.

Planted the leeks and red onions in the front beds.

And tomatoes in the side beds. Our seedlings are smaller since we did not use lights, but we are going to plant what we have and hope they turn out. So tiny in such a big world.

All tucked in.

The hardy kiwi is growing a ton in the short time it has been in. We trained it over to the trellis.

The watermelon are transplanted as well. We put two close together figuring we could thin down to the best one.

The chives are presenting us with a ton of nice flowers for looks and flavour.

We also put all the direct seed stuff in as well, so that should be popping up soon. Our peppers did not germinate so we bought some to put in on Sunday. We will also have leftover tomatoes that will go in buckets as I do not want to waste them. After Sunday everything will be in the ground, so it is just maintenance and praying from there on out.

I would prefer the garden in the back instead of the front of the house, but you go where the sun is. One thing that has been nice is that we have had a few nice comments from people walking by the house. The guy across the street came over on Thursday night asking around and saying he was interested in getting a garden going next year, so he was going to see how ours did to see if it was worth it. Pressure is on!

I feel like an agro rebel (sorry Sep, I am taking over), and I hope the visibility of the garden will encourage others to grow their own food as well. I feel better, and I want others to feel better as well.

A quick update. It has been really cloudy and rainy here of late, but the last couple days have been really nice. The plants have been well watered, and now with the sun coming out and the warmth arriving a bit they seem to be mostly happy. There have been some losses duet o hungry critters, but for the most part things are going well.

The kiwi is growing well.

And even has a few little fruit!

Peas are reaching for the sky and making nice with the trellis.

As are the beans.

A few peppers are working themselves up to something big.

The cucumbers are breaking on through to the other side.

The tomatoes are much bigger and doing well for the most part. I hope they have enough time to mature given how small they were when we put them outside.

Even the extras tomatoes in the pots are doing pretty good.

I have been trying to teach the cats to ambush whatever has been eating things. While it might look like it is working, trust me, she is just resting.

Our old neighbour is from Nova Scotia and a long time ago he brought some wild strawberries back here with him. The eventually migrated under the fence into our yard. Last year we tore down the old fence and put up a new one and unfortunately the strawberries were in the mix of digging/working. This little guy popped his head out this year, and there are a few others, so my hopes are high for an eventual full recovery for the strawberry patch.

Our blueberry bushes seem to be doing pretty good.

And last but not least my father's day present for my dad. It is always a special occasion when a son buys his dad his first pellet gun!

Oh, and a little treat for me so I can take the bolt action to the cottage and not disturb the neighbours too much.

Enjoy the weekend everyone, it finally feels like summer is here!

Mass!

While there is not a lot of edible going on just yet, which is understandable given we have only been outside for about a month, there is a ton of bio mass working its way up! I am really happy with the way things are going, and I think the high amount of rain has been a huge part of our success. There are some signs the peppers are getting too much water but I think we are in for a stretch of 3 or 4 days with litte to no rain so that should help them out. On to the good stuff...

Our leftover seedlings are doing well in their pots.

This is the best of our two peppers that actually germinated from the 36 seeds we planted. I just put them out because I did not want to waste them. I don't think we'll get food yield off them but at the very least we are growing compost. Not all yield is edible. Plus I'm pretty proud of these two survivors regardless.

Our pepper/squash/peas/beans bed. This is the bed that is going off large, I am so happy with the growth here. I am actually worried that 4 squash in 8 square feet here it too much. I might thin them.

One of the pepper plants we bought (since our seedlings did not do awesome) had a small pepper on it, this is how it is doing today.

Our banana pepper plants have a few peppers out.

The squash getting rowdy.

Beans maxing out the trellis.

And the peas working their way up as well.

Our mint forest is doing very well. I think it has grown about 4 fold in the last month. Special guest appearance by our hardy kiwi vines in top right.

Our leek and onion forest, with dill top right, cilantro top middle.

Top shot on the cilantro. Not sure what to expect from these guys, but they seems to be doing alright.

Our blueberry bushes have a good amount of fruit on them for year one.

The view from the sidewalk in front of the house.

Our basil pot is doing well.

Zucchini and vine tomatoes. I would like them to get more sun, but I think they are getting roughly 6 hours a day here. Hopefully it will be enough.

Vines again, showing decent growth despite my concerns.

Bush tomatoes seem pretty happy. They are in the same area as the vines, so again, I hope they are getting enough sun.

Last but certainly not least, a rowdy squash blossom.

As a super bonus our neighbour complimented us on the garden and mentioned how well things looked. She has a garden in her backyard (on the north side of our homes) and mentioned how hers is not doing so well since there is not enough sun back there. She mentioned how being in the front is so good and how she'd been thinking of ripping her front lawn up. I did everything I could to encourage her to do so.

This stuff might be contagious. Nothing would make me happier than to see a few more garden out front next year.

This weekend is Canada Day here, and I know next weekend is Independence Day, so happy applicable celebratory holiday to everyone! Have a good time, east some good food, drink so great beer/wine/spirits, and most of all stay classy.