Before + After: 16th Street Garden
Everybody loves a before and after story. Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for anything Joanna Gaines touches, so when we started looking for a home in Boise, I dreamed of a “Are y’all ready to see your Fixer Upper” moment. Unfortunately, my partner, Owen, isn’t as enthusiastic about projects. After seeing a few homes that had better yards than they did permanent structures, we came to a compromise. We’d buy a new construction home with a small yard that could serve as a blank canvas for my dream garden.
April 2019 - Our “backyard” is a blank slate!
I set to work on designing a small-space garden. I Pinterested, I Instagrammed. I’m pretty thrifty, and I knew I could build the garden of my dreams on a budget. I can help friends and clients see a design for their space, but I can often run into analysis paralysis when it comes to making my own choices. It doesn’t help that Owen is also an obliger personality, so we ran into a bit of a wall with our blank slate. I felt so overwhelmed by the options, I hired a freelance landscape designer to help me choose a path forward.
Sara at Green Thumb SAM came highly recommended, and I loved the gorgeous designs she created and posted on Instagram. She came over one warm summer morning and we talked through different options. She crafted a basic sketch, and I set to work implementing her design.
Over the course of the next year, Owen and I set to work on bringing this plan to fruition. I ordered custom cedar-and-galvanized-steel raised beds from Simon Vander Woude (Uncle Simon’s Garden Boxes). He was a pleasure to work with, his work is impeccable and he even delivered and installed the boxes. After filling them with a yard of soil from North End Organic Nursery, I told Owen we were never moving because I did not want to fill another seven-foot by two-foot by 28-inch bed all by myself, and there was not way those boxes could be moved.
Some of you might be wondering why I filled those beds in the fall. Why not wait until the spring? Fall is actually the perfect time to fill raised beds, as the moisture we get here in Boise starts coming down in September, and the rain, snow and melt cycle ensures the raised beds are draining properly before I even plant anything in them. I’ve had friends who rushed to start their raised beds this spring and filled them right away only to discover that the soil had too much clay and not draining properly. The COVID-induced garden rush left soil suppliers rushing unbalanced soil or unfinished compost out the door. I’ve found the only remedy is to add sand or wait until the compost cools on its own.
I did plant one thing that fall: an espalier apple tree from North End Organic Nursery.
Espalier is a French term for a tree, typically a fruit tree, that has been trained to a trellis. They’re good for small spaces like mine, and they look gorgeous. I planted it in the fall so it could establish it’s roots without worrying about flowering or fruiting. This is it’s first summer in my garden and it already has four apples! I bagged them to avoid worms without using pesticides.
I planted herbs, nasturtium, lettuces and other annuals in that garden bed so the roots on the apple tree could have some shade. I practice a form of intensive planting to combat our dry summers. It helps the soil retain its moisture and nutrients and provides a sort of living and green mulch. Read all about my planting strategy in last week’s blog post.
I’ve also been experimenting with the spacing in my side yard garden when it comes to plants. I’ve planted from herbs and peas, to tomatillos and beans and everything in between. This spring, we installed concrete pavers and solar lights to create a pathway to our back sitting area. Click through for images of my backyard garden before and after. I can’t wait to see what it looks like another year from now!
Are you ready to transform your space with a kitchen garden?