Let’s just say we do NOT live in a gardener’s paradise. We are on granite, desert mountaintop. Our soil is rocky and dry. We live close to wild life – rabbits, deer, coyotes and javelina use our side yard as a race way and eat everything in sight. And then there are small rodents and the birds!
Most gardener’s here either have securely fenced yards or have built raised beds (a big planter and filled it with soil). Some have both. They work great but are more or less permanent and expensive to build. David and I moved here last year. At the time we were not sure that we would be staying here permanently, so we leased a house for a year. Turns out we love it here, but now we need some time to find the place we want to buy. The point of all that is that we are renting and do not want to go to the time and expense of building a big fence or even raised beds.
David is nothing if not inventive. One day, he hit upon a great solution. A $9.00 child’s plastic swimming pool. Then he build a waist high table from some scrap lumber he found. The table was the inspired part – no kneeling or bending over to work in the ground.
AND we can bag soil and move it with us where ever we go.
For tomatoes and peppers he bought some 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot and used them as containers. Amazingly easy and not terribly expensive!
Now, there is nothing in this world like a fresh tomato picked off the vine! Here is the first once from our garden this year! Store bought tomatoes often look great and don’t have much taste. Farmer’s market tomatoes taste great but cost an arm and a leg. Tomatoes are the extreme example of the difference between store bought, farmer’s market and veggies picked fresh out of the garden.
Sure, home grown requires a little work and a lot of attention, but they are sooooo worth it! And the good news is that you don’t need a lot of space. With a small kid size swimming pool and a couple of 5 gallon buckets, a few of bags of soil, some water, sun and seeds you can have an abundance of fresh food.
More about our gardening adventures as the weeks go on. You can also check out a picture diary on shutterfly.