Suburban Farms

It is time to plant now.
For most of us, we do not have large estates with a staff to maintain our organic, heirloom gardens - such as the case for Martha Stewart and The Fabulous Beekman Boy, my two personal favorites. Some of us have gardens large enough for canning hobbies and some of us just have the Noah's Arc garden (two of each to last the summer). And some of us just go to the farmer's market or Patterson's for the latest harvests.

At any rate...it is time to plant.  Here are pictures of friends and family who have found creative ways, despite living in suburban neighborhoods, to grow their own cornucopias.

Leslie wanted to plant on a particular side of the house because of the sunlight. However, in this spot next to the driveway, she could not dig due to gas lines. Solution - a raised bed. You can fill the bed with compost, top soil, etc... It took her 15 bags of topsoil to fill this bed.

Lacie is building a raised bed. These are easy to do because you don't need footers.  Just nail the corners together.  The point is to just hold some dirt long enough to grow okra and corn and....

My mom did not like the soil or sunlight in her back yard, so she just dug up the front flower bed next to the driveway. Here you can see her Swiss Chard and Romain Lettuce.

Here is another angle of my mom's front yard garden. She has got the stakes for the tomatoes ready.



These are called Earth Boxes. You water the box through the black tube. (Look on the far right corner of the back box to see the tube.) The results are amazing.  I have seen peppers, cucumbers, radishes, and lettuce all come out of these boxes.  In this picture, red lettuce is in the front and green lettuce is in the rear.

Here is a picture of my Aunt Cathy's Earth Boxes. She has broccoli in the first box, tomatoes in the second box, and I forgot what was in third box, HA!