The Garden Begins

One December afternoon, Joel and I stared at the blank slate that was his yard. Hints of a lawn since past was only discernable by the brick edging and rock surround that was so popular in Phoenix Arizona – we’re aren’t sure why. I don’t even remember why I had stopped by, but we mused about the possibilities of starting a garden for nearly an hour; after all, the majority of the yard was plain dirt and got plenty of sun for any urban garden.  We talked about plants, and soil amending and all the things that we would need to do to start a garden.  After carefully weighing the plan, we decided that if we waited another season, we would only be another year behind planting and harvesting a great urban garden.

Prepping the soil

The following weekend, we rented a rototiller and hauled in a load of planting mix for the local mulcher – Western Organics.  They take the green waste from the landfill to create compost, then amend with gypsum, sand, and some trace fertilizers to make one heck of a planting soil.  The benefits of composting are well known, so I figure using waste that would otherwise be in the landfill is not only good for the garden, but also our community.

We ran the tiller to a depth of about 12 inches and turned in all the planting mix.  The heavy clay soil could have used another couple truck loads of planting mix, but we could only get in on load before the yard closed for the day.   After running the rototiller, we raked the dirt into row and marveled at what we had done.

Irrigation Design

After the initial December push, we haven’t really done all that much to the garden.  Both Joel and I have started several trays of seeds, and Joel has done most of the planting.  That’s the disadvantage of having the garden at someone else’s house – I kind of like itJ  We did take some time to run water lines into the garden.  While that project is not complete yet, we have done the hard part of digging up the old water line, and connecting a run of copper to three spigots that are placed along the middle pathway of the garden. This provides ample water to anywhere in the garden with a short hose. We will also be installing some drip irrigation lines that will supply most of the water. These ½ inch poly lines will feed off the main copper line and loop up and down the rows.  ¼ inch lines will run from main poly line up to each plant where a loop of soaker hose will wrap around the base of the plant.  I find that this works extremely well at keeping water at the base of the plant and eliminating the issue of plugged dripper emitters.

Garden Layout and Design

Here’s the overall plan for the yard:

Planting areas consist of the main “grass area” which extends roughly 30 feet back and is 15 – 20 feet wide. This area will be home to most of the row crops such as corn, onions, lettuce, dill, cilantro, tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers, etc.

There are also three reasonably large raised beds that are on three corners of the back yard.  These beds will be home to some of the more indiscriminant plants such as watermelon, pumpkins, cantaloupe, squash, etc.

Once all these beds are full, we will start to poke holes in the gravel areas around the perimeter to install more plants.  This will allow us to take advantage of the space, without raking up and hauling off the gravel.  Who knows, the gravel might just give some much needed air circulation around any foliage that lies on the ground.

No related posts.