Starting Point

Of course I'm years away from seeing my ideal system realized.  Aside from costs and time to put that together, there is also getting all the bits to integrate - or seeing even if they WILL integrate. But we have a start point.

I've been working since September on the backyard - I didn't have a snap of what I started with, but I have one of where I'm at right this moment. At this point we're working through square foot gardening techniques and planting and vermicomposting as a source of soil amendment and fertilizer.
Basically how much can I plant, what can I plant when, and how much can I keep fed and healthy. So far I manage to keep everything watered every second day and fertilized twice a week at zero cost.

I'm rather proud of how utterly unimpressive it is. I wish I had a picture of the beds close to the house before I started - they were more or less there when I moved in only they were filled with hard packed soil and mulched with building nails, broken glass, wood, and other debris. With kids using the backyard - this moved the garden to a high priority. I've pinestrawed over unusable parts of the area as there are no rain gutters and water drops some 40ft down off the top story roof onto those areas - carving channels through soil and tearing through plants.
What was left I cleaned, dug, turned, amended, and in Autumn I test drove. I planted out Fall veg that continued to grow all the way till the turn of spring - most of it I dug out at that point and prepared for spring. What's in there now (along with the newly added 4x4 raised bed) has been growing for about a month.  The beans and peas are starting to flower and I've already harvested some radishes and swiss chard.  Lettuce has been a slow uptake.

What takes a bit to sink in is that there's no wasted space on rows and aisles. and when you start adding it up - there is 55 square feet in garden there in beds alone - that's 55 different squares for containing plants.

Looking closer at the last added bed - each square contains as many plants as it's seed spacing allows - peas are 8 per square.  Bush beans are at 9, lettuce is at 4, and the kale in front is at 1.

That 4 x 4 square is holding 16 peas,54 bush beans, (eventually) 16 lettuce and 4 Kale.

that's a lot of stuff for 4 x 4.  and that's a little over 1/4 of the current available space.

Other things you can see there are squash, zucchini and butternut squash in containers - these plants take up a lot of space, but it's leaf space - giving them self watering pots means they can be moved around and given all the space they need without hogging valuable dirt space.

I have a compliment of containers and pots on the back step as well containing everything from broccoli to herbs and even potatoes.

An inventory of what's currently sprouted and growing:

• Cherry Tomatoes x 5
• Tomatoes x 3
• Thyme, parsley (lots), basil x 5, sage x 5, chives (lots)
• Broccoli x 3
• Mustard Greens x 27
• Lettuce x 24
• Beets x 38
• Carrots x32
• Radishes x 32
• Swiss Chard x 16
• Garlic x 12
• Corn x 10
• Onions x 12
• Green Peppers x 7
• Snow Peas x 16
• Green Beans x 54
• Kale x 4
• Butternut Squash, Zucchini, summer squash x 1
• Potatoes x8
• and one lone blueberry plant I brought back from the farm.

 Like I said - I'm rather happy with how underwhelming it is....until you start counting plants.