Today I’m taking a look back at our garden and backyard to see how far we’ve come this year. We had a very early freeze last Sunday and ended up pulling in much of our remaining produce in case the plants didn’t survive the cold temperatures. The cold weather continued throughout the week, and cloudy, windy days made it feel more like winter than fall. Of course it’s back in the 70’s today and thankfully the tomatoes, tomatillos, and some of the peppers seemed to have made it through. We’ll still be harvesting more, but it’s still a good time for a summer 2018 garden recap!
The Side Yard
First things first, let’s talk about our side yard. When we moved into the house five years ago, the side yard basically looked like this and stayed that way until February when we decided we couldn’t stand the boring gravel anymore. Also, the stepping stones were really close to the satellite dish (which we don’t use) and the area was becoming a gathering place for random items (broken planter, extra garage door seal).
I know–so bad right? Our yard is extremely tiny and all this space was going to waste. So of course I convinced my husband that it would be a very quick project to build a few small raised planters and make this area look better. Many weekends and sore backs later we finally finished. Now we have a beautiful side yard with fruit trees and raised beds with trellises! Definitely worth the effort 🙂 The fruit trees in the pots are a plum, a nectarine, a peach, and a fig. The planters have a grapevine, a blackberry bush, onions, chives, and peppers. This picture was taken early in the summer, and everything grew in nicely. This area should look even better next year.
We also built platforms for rain barrels and installed them after adding gutters to the house (not pictured). I’m not sure why houses here don’t come with gutters, but they were definitely necessary for us. The rain used to pour off the roof into this side yard area and wash out the gravel. I’m also excited to not have to deal with snow dripping off the roof and icing over our driveway in the winter!
The Patio Area
We have two patio areas in the backyard–one that’s covered and one in full sun. We’ve always had a cute conversation set and lights under the covered area but hadn’t done much in the open area. We want to be able to host more outdoor dinner (and just eat outside in general) so once the outdoor furniture started going on sale in August, we picked up this table, chairs, and umbrella to create a dining area. Please ignore the trellis stuck in the chair–I took this before hosting book club and I tied my iPad to the trellis so we could FaceTime someone into the dinner. Pro tip right there–it was the perfect height 😉
The turquoise umbrella and black metal chairs helped the dining area coordinate with our existing conversation set even though everything was purchased from different stores and at different times.
We also inherited this adorable pineapple water fountain and created our version of a Spanish-style mini garden near the dining area. In the pots are stevia, a blueberry bush, chocolate mint, St. John’s wort, and lemon balm.
Between the comfy seating area, our new dining table, and the peaceful sounds of the fountain, I know we’ll be enjoying these areas a lot in the future!
The Garden
Last year, we basically ripped out our entire yard and put in raised planters for gardening. I was really worried it wouldn’t look nice enough and would ruin the yard, but it turned out to be one of my favorite areas and I don’t regret it one bit! My dream has always been to have a giant garden and grow most of our veggies. Though I don’t have a naturally green thumb, I learn more every year and the garden keeps improving. We use square foot gardening to maximize our space, which I’ll be talking about more in future posts.
This is how the raised beds looked in February before we planted anything. Just looking at this picture makes me cold! We keep these planters covered because of the constant strong winds we experience at our house. The covers break the wind but the open ends still allow bees to get inside.
We started most of our plants by seed this year and spent months with tiny seedlings hanging out in the master bedroom since it’s the only room with southern windows. We also direct-sowed some of the seeds in the planters. When we planted everything in May this is what it looked like:
By June, everything was growing nicely. Even though our backyard faces south, our plants tend to mature a little later than expected. Thankfully we usually have a long growing season and it’s not an issue.
By the time mid September rolled around the planters were overflowing! This is also the first year we planted flowers along with our veggies and it was great to see the bees enjoying them in the mornings.
By the end of the summer, the flowers and tomatoes were literally pushing the covers off the planters. We’re talking zinnias and cherry tomato plants that were taller than me! We did uncover the middle planter to give the flowers some room and see how it would do, but of course the wind thrashed all the plants and bent them sideways. Never underestimate a strong canyon wind!
Some things that really improved our garden this year were the addition of shade cloth to the planters since we actually get too much sun in this area, the unusually high amount of rain we got in July, and sticking to our planting calendar.
We also loosened the soil considerably before planting to make sure the plant roots had space to spread out. This meant we were finally successful growing carrots! Unfortunately I didn’t plant very many since they’ve been a massive failure for us in the past. But this giant one (aka more than an inch long) makes me so happy!
Here’s the pictures of the produce from our “final” harvest last weekend. The flowers are also from our garden.
We’re still going to have more tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, and jalapeños coming in, and I didn’t track herbs and greens, but here are our current totals for 2018:
- Peas: 87
- Eggplant: 5
- Okra: 6
- Carrots: 7
- Onion: 1 (plus many green onions)
- Radishes: 5
- Beets: 14
- Shishito Peppers: 7
- Jalapeños: 37
- Green Chile: 5
- Ground Cherries: 27
- Tomatillos: 24
- Cherry Tomatoes: 271
- Beefsteak Tomatoes: 50
- Peaches: 1
- Figs: 5
There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but I’m so proud of our little urban garden! Considering how small our yard is and that we’re gardening in the middle of the desert, I’d say we’re doing pretty well. Once we start prepping next year’s garden I’ll share more details on planting calendars, building planters, wind protection, drip irrigation, and other fun topics, but for now I’m just going to enjoy the fall weather and the last of this year’s produce. Thanks for joining me for this year’s garden recap!
