When Space is Tight, Your Garden Has to Look Good

I wasn't much of a gardener when I lived in Maine.  It was only after we moved to Salt Lake City, with its dry, urban feel that I began to appreciate the value of adding beauty to my yard. In Maine the beauty was already there. Because I understood the worth of providing your own food, I did attempt to grow some vegetables. It turns out that you can't just clear a patch of grass, stick in some plants and then ignore it for the rest of the summer, save a watering every few days. Needless to say my first attempt was a failure, but my point is that with the luxury of two acres to work with, I was able to get away with some things that you can't in a smaller space. Planting veggies in widely spaced rows, with walkways between each row, is all well and good when you can afford to spread out. Since the veggie patch was located at the end of our backyard, no one ever looked at it (this may have been a factor in its demise). "Composting" consisted of throwing kitchen scraps and clippings in a heap in the woods during the warmer months. Yeah, it stank and it took forever to break down, but who cared? It was in the woods.

It's ironic that as we moved on in life, we got farther and farther away from that spacious clearing in the woods. Now that we are squeezed into a small space in the burbs, supporting not just two people but five, we are determined to master , or at least refine, the art of "growing your own."

It turns out that the ideal real estate for putting our sun-loving vegetables was located...in the front yard. A patch of bare dirt with a half-arse chicken wire fence around it was not going to enhance our curb appeal. We were only here a few weeks when I grabbed a spade and started turning the earth anyway, because anything we did would still be better than the collection of weeds that inhabited the ground around our mailbox. Six months later, our work-in-progress has evolved into a combination of form and function:

Raised beds are intermingled with landscaping elements and ornamental plantings. Some of our ornamentals do double-duty: marigolds and nasturtium not only add color, but have alleged bug-repellent properties as well (although I learned the hard way that snails and slugs adore marigolds). Nasturtium even has edible flowers. Some varieties of portulaca, a plant often regarded as a weed, are also edible. Honestly, I'm not entirely certain that the plants I have in this picture are the edible kind, although I did taste one leaf and I didn't gag or die.

Herbs coexist happily with my flowers and foliage plants in the front garden.


Herbs and some other plants can be grown in containers on the porch, along walkways, or in the driveway. In this picture I have basil, oregano and parsley growing in pots by the front door (the basil could be in a prettier pot but it was in dire need of a re-planting).


"Edible landscaping" is my new best friend. Here petunias live alongside peppers and sweet potatoes - that crazy vine that is taking over everything. It grows like a weed here.


Lilikoi - passionfruit - grows on trellises to (I hope) eventually obscure an ugly brick wall. It shares space with strawberries that will act like a groundcover, spilling over the sides if the planter.


Asparagus is another attractive (and perennial) edible plant.



So this area needs some work...in the foreground is our banana tree with an "elephant ear" (not edible) growing in the corner. I have edible ginger growing next to the elephant ear, which will help cover the fence. When everyone grows up, it should be starting to look pretty tropical back here.

I am looking for grapevines to grow up this pergola. A potted plant hides the compost bins behind the shed.


My pet project: chickens! You'll be hearing much more about this. The coop here will soon be enclosed in a fence in this corner, which is space that couldn't be used otherwise. I look forward to drinking coffee on the lanai and watching the chickens.