This year is going to be different in the garden.

No more sunny community plot

I made the decision not to renew my garden plot at the community garden this year.

• Watering – it’s basically necessary to water every day, and we’re not allowed timer/ auto systems. I’m also commuting across town every day now. Watering would be a challenge.
• Achy breaky – I started having some back pain on and off that makes working on the ground a challenge. The plot required a lot of full body work, and the yard containers should be easier to maintain.

One of my garden friends already reached out because I missed the first work day of the season. I’m going to miss the community aspect a lot, but plan to go lurk around occasionally to visit.

Embracing the Yarden

I’m keeping my garden within the walls of my small yard fence this year.

Pros: I don’t have to travel there, I can set up automatic watering, I can harvest things gradually, my yard will be full of happy plants

Cons: I don’t have direct sun in most of my yard, no friends, no free neighbor seedlings or harvest, no free neighbor pollinators (gotta grow my own flowers)

Transforming the Yarden

My yard was a bit chaotic with all of my plot stuff, yard stuff, a snowblower…

But with some help from my parents I’ve done some work to make it pretty nice!

All of my direct sun lands within a strip along the fence line (hence the conspicuous grouping of containers. Not ideal, but great for growing things vertically which is already my favorite!!

Seedlings

Unfortunately most of my seedlings didn’t make it through the indoor pre-season (except for some tomato plants). I just got distracted and they dried up. This year I’ll be mostly buying plant starts for the long-lead items like flowers and herbs which will be jarringly expensive compared to seeds.

Up next – planning

I’m planning to buy some plants this weekend so my next steps are to make a plan for which seedlings I need to buy, and which seeds I’m going to start sowing.

Let the gardening begin!