Alright for those of you who wanted to see how our backyard garden(s) works here you go...
This is looking off our deck to the side. Once upon a time we had an old storage shed where the rain barrel and compost are and the rest was a dog run. It's now all food producing. The box had a cold frame lid on it this spring. We've got spinach, peppers, kohlrabi, beans, zucchini, and carrots in there. It doesn't look very big but it's a decent sized garden. We've now "trained" (or left her no other option) the dog to do her business in one small area which also makes for much easier clean up.
Cold frame number two has carrots, overgrown completely gone to seed spinach (which surprisingly still tastes fantastic and not a bit strong) and more carrots again on the other side. We really like carrots. This cold frame was seeded last September, the spinach grew until about January then had a break for a couple of months where it didn't grow but didn't die either. Once it warmed up in March we got a bunch more growth. Carrots on the left were seeded late February and carrots on the right about mid-end March, they are basically the same size right now.
Main garden. This is the garden we've had since we first bought our house although it slowly gets a bit bigger. On the left is our totally classy and fancy temporary "green house" for the tomatoes and peppers. So far it's working like a charm. There's another cold frame in there as well housing more spinach, swiss chard, arugula, radishes, and of course more carrots. Behind that we've got onions, garlic, peas, and both green beans and dry beans.
We started the tomatoes and peppers in the house early this year and we've already got some decently sized tomatoes growing and tiny little peppers.
The kids garden. Just big enough for them each to plant 3-4 rows of whatever they wanted. We seeded that late this year but it's doing good so far. (Main garden is just on the right side there)
Here we've got three haskap, or honey berry bushes, and two Saskatoon's. Those were all just planted a month or so ago so it'll be 2-3 years at least before we get any real production out of them.
haskap bush
And here's the reason we have mini fences around all the gardens... her and the three kids of course. Anyway she's standing in front of the raspberry bushes. This is their third year so I'm counting on a good production. Last year we got quite a few berries but more enough to just go out and eat a handful a day than to actually preserve for later on in the year.
These are our grape vines. There's three of them with strawberries scattered around the bottom. This will be year two for the grapes.
As you can see we still have a lot of green space. We're lucky enough to be on a culdasac which gives us a pie shaped lot so we have a decent sized yard. To the left Travis built a small workshop for all his bow building and other woodworking projects. He's also got a decent sized garden shed and we still have room to park our tent trailer and van. On the back side of that back fence we've also planted a blackberry bush, along the alley. In our front yard we just planted a honey crisp apple tree as well. We've got some flowers in a front bed and lots of chives but thanks to a massive pine tree we can't plant too much in the front yard.
So there you go. We've still got more than enough playing room, a huge picnic table, clothes line, fire pit, and lots of grass but we're able to grow a significant amount of food too. I know the lawn will get smaller and smaller as the years go on but I'm okay with that.
