Edible Plants

[lionofgod]

I now find myself in possession of a yard, and my thoughts have inevitably turned to making it more interesting. In particular, since I have not inherited either my mother's green thumb (her garden is currently the most remarkably lovely jungle, despite being in NJ) or her love of spending hours on my knees in the dirt, I would like

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[gmpe]

Last year, abce's parents put in soaker hoses in their yard. There is a project of putting them in and a project of taking them out, but thing grow really well with them! (You can just put them on a timer so your plants get regular watering, plus no evaporation loss.) I recommend this, since then you don't have a daily gardening task, just two "project" days you can plan for.

Strawberries need ground space and sun. I tend to pick plants for the yard that produce things I can't get as nicely at the farmer's market or which are just that much yummier right off the plant. I like cherry tomatoes, since then I can pick up a variety of the bigger heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market without being stuck with a bumper crop of any one variety. Our cherry tomatoes do want to be supported, but we haven't had any bug problems. If you plant marigolds under/with tomatoes, they repel one of the kids of bugs that eat tomato plants. I also like to have a bunch of herbs, since I never want the size bunch that I have to buy at the market.

You can send away soil samples to the lab at UMass (Boston?) to find out if there are any contaminants in your soil you want to worry about. All the info and detailed instructions are online somewhere. Think about this now while your soil is still soft. It takes a while to get the results, but you'd have them in time for any of next year's planting you could care about.

For the non-edibles, consider "Darwinian" gardening. It's what we do. Things get watered when they are planted and pretty much never again. I have mulch down to minimize weeds (I weed about 3-4x per year, max) and pretty much everything is a perennial. If it thrives, great. If not, something else gets planted there. (I did work hard to improve the soil before I planted it after taking out the mini-lawn that used to be there when we moved in.)

Ask hard questions about water requirements, root spread, etc. if you are planning to plant a tree in such a small space. Remember that nothing else may grow around it and it will need lots of water. I know little about it, but know that the tree in our back yard is part of the reason there is no grass in the shady areas. :)

I have a number of books on planning gardens, etc. You are welcome to look through them and borrow them, if you'd like.