First Greens - 2023 06 08

 

A modest collection of mustard greens and lettuce leaves from our first year garden.

I walk around my neighbourhood several times a day to exercise with my dog. I notice other boulevard and front yard gardens and see how big their plants are at this time of year. 

My garden does not come close to the production I am seeing in my neighbour's gardens. However, it is a first year garden in a front yard and boulevard that have been continuously under construction since 2011. Before we started renovating to put a new basement under our house, our entire yard was surrounded by a mature, 30' cedar hedge. It was very hard to get anything to grow near that hedge. 

The hedge was removed to make way for excavation to install a new foundation and basement under our 1911 house. The entire yard was dug out, new drainage and foundation installed and then the foundation walls backfilled with sand. The only soil remaining was around the perimeter, and it was the soil that had been conditioned over decades by the cedar hedge.

We hauled five truckloads of compost soil from the City of Vancouver green recycling program in the month of May. This soil turned out to have nice texture but it was essentially sterile. There were no microorganisms in the soil to support plant life. 

Our approach this year has been to set up our own demonstration garden, turning our private front yard into a community garden and working together to bring the soil to life.

These cuttings represent our first food from our demonstration garden, started last month.

It was a delicious feeling to eat food from our own garden.


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