Thursday, April 15, 2010

Dunbar Irrigated Garden

An attractive rock retaining wall faces Dunbar Street with a carefully trimmed hedge high up on the slope. It's quite difficult to see the house. The only clue that there might be an interest in vegetables is the garlic interspersed between the bushes.
But there is a front-yard vegetable garden, tucked way up by the house--note how Dunbar Street appears far below. In February, there are still green veggies to eat that have wintered over. The blueberry bushes lining the walkway are mulched with sawdust.
The next two photos were taken on April 1. Because the garden has relatively few veggies left to eat, one can see the "bones" of the garden, an elaborate irrigation system, which was manufactured in Israel. There are raspberry bushes leafing out next to the house. The owners did a tremendous amount of work recently to create this garden, and their reward is excellent production from this sunny and automatically watered site. It is quite attractive even in winter because they keep it utterly tidy.
But that is not all! On the south-facing lane to the side of the house, the owners grew a few tomatoes in 2009. However, this year they've embarked on another major project, sifting out the rocks and getting a load of dirt. I wish I had a "before" photo from last summer. This photo was taken in February during the 2010 Winter Olympics, hence the flag!
By April, the terraced beds are beginning to take shape.
Work continues in mid April...additional soil had to be acquired. As with gardening in general, there's always more to do.

3 comments:

Heather said...

Looks good so far, I'm interest to see what you grow in the beds this year.

Mark Kreider said...

These folks sure make a neatly mowed yard seem extremely boring. They certainly exhibit a flair for garden design. My two new little patches are tilled and amended but still lack the border wood we hope to get soon. I'm trying to come up with a watering scheme too. I'm almost there. These are very wonderfully descriptive photos! I'm curious what kind of rogue plant that is, 'stalking' up the walk.

Janice Kreider said...

Stalking up the walk is a kale plant that survived the winter (and probably had bits taken off for eating by hungry humans).