Cliff's Notes

Now to get you up to speed on all the work that hubby Kyle and I have done over the past month...
When we moved in we had a beautifully tilled blank slate.  Cue the rain and Christmas busyness. These resulted in a sea of weeds, mostly oxalis which looks like clovers with bright yellow flowers and is impossible to kill.  I've read that people actually purchase this plant but I'm telling you now- Do not be that person.  You'll regret it forever.  It's incredibly invasive, drops thousands of seeds, and can regenerate if even a quarter of an inch of it is left in the ground.  Well, we didn't know all that so we proceeded to hack it into thousands of tiny pieces, pulling out whatever we could.  Then we decided that cement slab that sits right outside the back door was neither of sufficient size nor in a good locale for furniture so we went to The Home Depot and bought twelve-inch cement squares in grey and red and laid them down in a fun pattern over weed blocking cloth.  Now I learned the proper method of laying pavers from my dad but this is only an apartment and we weren't looking for a big investment.  It came out flat enough for our taste but you should have seen us stomping on the pavers trying to get them set.  Pure comedy.



 Next, I planted 55 gladiolus bulbs down the west side of the yard.  I have very dense clay soil but after adding a couple bags of soil amender my bulbs were happily resting in their new bed.  Over a three week period I amended and planted four beds of edibles on the east side of the yard.  I also potted a young Moro Blood Orange tree in a dwarf variety and named it Squirt.  (I don't have pets or kids so, yes, I named my tree.)  Here's what's growing:
Bed #1- tomatoes, spinach, and a variety of lettuces
Bed #2- bell peppers, swiss chard, carrots, and beets (I LOVE BEETS!)
Bed #3- zucchini, cantaloupe, and cucumbers
Bed #4- peas, broccoli, strawberries, and artichokes

Between the beds I laid down natural bark chips over newspaper to keeps the weeds out and to give me something other than mud to walk on.  I also set potted marigolds, ranunculus, and nasturtiums in between to help with pests.  Finally, on Kyle's most recent day off we tackled the always shady south-east corner of the yard, planting fuscia, gladiolus, impatiens, and coleus with marigolds and pansies stretching into the sun. Phew!  All the planting is done for now.  So here are some pics of the results...





Before- just dirt and weeds



Aerial view from my bedroom window









A New Adventure

I've recently started a new adventure.  Micro-Farming.  Typically micro-farming takes place on two to five acres so maybe I should be calling what I'm doing "extreme micro-farming."  I am working with less than one one-thousandth of an acre or 416 square feet and part of that is cement!  Maybe that seems crazy but that's Orange County apartment life for ya.  Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I'm always interested in the most natural way of doing things even of it tends to be a bit more labor intensive process.  I've really wanted to start an edible garden for a long time but living in an upstairs apartment without even a balcony made that pretty much impossible.  So at the end of 2010 when my hubby and I moved into an apartment with a backyard I was stoked to start growing food for us.  Sixteen feet by twenty-six feet is a big backyard for an apartment but I spent a couple months planning because part of that space would be patio.  Since my gardening experience is limited to helping my mom when I was a kid I borrowed books from the library, picked up several magazines, and spent a bit of time online to expand my knowledge on the subject of edible gardening.  But don't worry, this blog will be more than planting and watering.  I think of micro-farming as a much broader subject that includes recipes, natural remedies, the creative process, and an overall healthy lifestyle.  So I hope you will enjoy this adventure with me!