Back at It

So apparently I am terrible at follow through; it’s been two years since I remembered to post something to ye ole blog. I have good excuses though! Lots of good excuses! The most exciting of which is I bought a house last year! Woooooo! It’s been 14 months of renovating and saving for renovating and then renovating some more. There is literally NO END to the work that needs to be done on this place. About six weeks ago though, I finally bit the bullet and had some raised beds built in my garden. I didn’t even bother to test the soil. It’s West Oakland. That shit is seriously fucked and there’s nothing I can do about it.

 Natural state of my backyard.

Pre-patio, pre-new back door and pre-getting rid of those hideous bars.

I had a few main concerns about the garden beds. Redwood is pretty and lasts forever, but I’m on a budget, and will likely only be in this house ~5 years. We ended up going with douglas fir for both of those reasons (redwood for the patio though). I also knew I wanted my beds to be 2ft high, so figuring out a way to combat outward warping/bowing of the wood was key. We ended up filling the lower third of the beds with vermiculite to keep everything lighter (added bonus of increasing drainage!). I wish I could say that this lowered the cost of filling the beds with soil, but the vermiculite was only nominally cheaper. We went with EcoScraps for compost and the soil (2:1 ratio), because it’s pretty much the only brand Home Depot carries that isn’t owned by the devil or filled with a bunch of terrible crap.

Another piece of my garden pie was making the most of the existing space and the non-functional yet extremely heavy fountain that sits smack in the middle of the garden. I opted to create three distinct spaces in the backyard: a patio, the garden, and what will eventually be a small fire pit/hangout space. If I had to guess (and apparently I feel like I do), we probably spent about $3k on the project between labor, soil and materials for the patio and beds. Not exactly cheap, but well worth it to create my happy place.

Getting the pieces together...

Fits like a puzzle!

Since the garden didn’t get finished until mid-may, and even then not all at once, the plants I chose this year are a little different from years passed. Now that I pretty much live alone, I’m trying to grow mostly foods I can put up for the off-season so things don’t go to waste. Instead of growing all the tomatoes, I’m growing four Roma tomato plants to can for sauces and paste. We’re growing seven kinds of chili peppers because I can’t live without hot sauce, and carrots, cukes and radishes to pickle. I am determined to have a pantry that would make my great grandmothers proud.

 Thanks for the action shot, Annie!

2014 Planting List

Roma Tomatoes

Romanesco Zucchini

Carrots (Carnival, Red Chantennay, Little Fingers, Tonda di Parigi)

Japanese Eggplant

Artichoke

Mesclun

Spinach

Delikatesse Cucumbers

Pickling Cucumbers

Chioggia Beets

Golden Beets

Watermelon Radishes

Petaluma Gold Rush Beans

Sugar Snap Peas

Black-eyed Peas

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Bunching Green Onions

Chili Peppers (Serrano, Thai, Super Chili F., Hot Banana, Habanero, Scotch Bonnet, Jalapeno)

Basil

Dill

So, six-ish weeks into growing things are a-happening. Once again, aphids are the bane of my existence (seriously, aphids, fuck off and die), but they don’t seem to be doing much harm other than raising my blood pressure. Chard and lettuces are ready to be enjoyed, and we've harvested 2 giant hot banana peppers that are currently fermenting with some habaneros and garlic in my kitchen (post on adventures in fermenting hot peppers coming at some point!). Things, as they say, are going tits. And I like it.

First harvest of the year!