• Home
• About
• Blog Roll

More Square Footage Put to Good Use
May 27, 2008

Even since my last book club discussion on From Grass to Gardens, I’ve been looking at my yard with new eyes. Bless with a great view but a hilly and somewhat shady yard, we’ve had to be very creative in how to best use our little plot of land. So far, we’ve managed to squeeze in a small grassy area for kid and dog, a variety of foliage and blooms and even a few fruit trees. With no room for a formal vegetable garden, we planted our edibles among the blooms: tomatoes and cucumbers with the sun loving roses, potatoes mounded in an awkward corner and lettuce seedlings (keeping my fingers crossed on these) mixed among the hostas.

But that still left a terraced strip of dirt at the very top of the yard which is long in length but measures only 8 inches in the narrowest section. It’s too narrow (and too high) for seating but not enough width to plant in rows. Finally we decided that if we can’t grow out, we’ll grow up. This lead to our Memorial Day weekend project: building a 16’ long trellis.

The project required a trip to Home Depot for wood, cement and screws, some know-how and lots of sweat equity (digging post holes in our rock hard soil is hard work). The skilled labor portion was executed by my husband and dad but it allowed plenty of unskilled help too. My daughter and I had a great time helping carry wood pieces, dig in the dirt and of course, supervise the project.
After 2 days of work, the trellis is now complete.

Next week, we are going to work on making my dream of a bean espalier backing finally come true.

CindyC at Organicpicks

If you enjoyed this entry, please subscribe to the Organic Picks Blog

Copyright 2007 Organicpicks