The Urban Permaculture Farm Magazine

Plotting Along by Megan Clothier

Last spring, when we bought our little old house, there was a kid's sandbox in the back yard. In the days after we moved in, our packing boxes lay untouched as we immediately dove in to our first house project: converting the sand box in to a veggie patch.

Little did we know that the simple idea of growing a few vegetables would turn in to such a rewarding love affair with gardening! 

I think there is something quite magical about gardening, the excitement it brings when your seedlings first sprout, then flower, then produce babies of their own, the community it brings, the conversations over the back fence, the pride in sharing the foods that you have grown...it is pretty safe to say that we are addicted. 

Our 2009 growing season was extremely rewarding and (productive!), so it was of no surprise that as soon as the summer began to fade we were already planning for the spring.

The two biggest hurdles we hit last year were a lack of bees (resulting in un-pollinated fruit) and lack of space. Truth be told - we didn't really have a lack of space, but if I had my way I would rip up the whole back yard and turn it in to one giant veggie patch.

But (for now), I have settled on converting the area over the back fence in to a secondary plot - almost doubling our square footage. I hastily ordered 5 tons of the darkest, richest, most fertile soil I could find.

Turns out my calculations were a little off, and 5 tons of soil is a lot of soil - far more than we needed to fill our new plot. Needless to say, our existing plot was very happy to receive a fresh layer of piping hot soil to warm up it toes and welcome in the spring.

We are very lucky to have four large lavender bushes over the back fence that attract a huge number of bees when they flower (the problem was attracting them in to the main garden); so I plan to plant everything that requires pollination (pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers etc.) over in the new plot.

To make way for the new veggie patch we had to pull out one of the lavender bushes, but we have successfully transplanted it inside the fence next to our original plot. So hopefully with the additional space and close proximity to lavender-loving-bees, 2010 will be a bumper season!