Welcome to my Sustainable Urban Garden

My garden is a work in progress, always growing and changing within itself.

My gardens include many herbal beds, raised vegetable beds, raised "citrus heights" citrus tree bed, berry beds, fruit trees, grape arbor, rose beds and many perennial flower beds with annuals too. My greenhouse is still in the transformation stage,
as well as some planting areas.
Enjoy your journey through my gardens, I do!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The tool shed is coming along as well as the garden

During the extreme heat, I haven't gone out to the garden until the sun goes down and then have so much to do in the garden that I didn't get any pictures of the shed progress for awhile.

I planted two tomatillos (since you need two for fertilization) along the fence by the nectarine (Fantasia), the lemon verbena and the Royal Blenheim apricot.  They are finally making little paper balls after being in flower what seens like months. I had planted tomatillos in this area last year, but I completely weeded and changed the bed, as well as adding over 4 inches of mulch, so the tomatillos did not reseed here. I was surprised.



















I was more than surprised when about 6-10 tomatillo plants volunteered in my eggplant bed which is across the walkway from the fence bed where the new tomatillos are growing. I guess I did not mulch this bed as deeply. These volunteers are very healthy and trying to take over the whole bed - which I guess they kind of are.  Below is a picture of the volunteer tomatillo paper balls.














I think they are beautiful!  I am going to have a lot of tomatillos this year. I will broil them in the oven on each side for 5 minutes and blend them slightly and freeze much of them in portions to use during the year as salsa, in pasta dishes and soups. Yumm!

One tip: pull the skins off as you pick them or later you may not be able to get them off because the inside skin has a sticky surface that adheres them really well. Just rinse and don't worry about the stickiness before you broil.

The tool shed now has a nice roof.  Good thing because it is really overcast today and was part of yesterday. So, that means it has cooled down too!!! Yea! 















The tool shed also has a very nice dutch door. It will be painted to match the studio nearby.



















The trim will be pained gray and the center parts of the door will be light blue. I especially like the hardware.



















Here the door is open. This is nice because I can reach lots of the hand tools I use just through this top part. I have a nice small, but long shelf on the right and lots of shelves on the left.

The next pictures will show big changes in the look of the tool shed when the siding goes on.  Hopefully I will have those soon!!!  I need to get this finished so I can clean out the greenhouse to make it ready for winter seed starting and keeping a few other plants happy during the winter. I will be using the solar electric for fans, lighting and a heater for warmth if need be in the greenhouse. I have more carrots starting in the greenhouse now, but need to start many more fall plants soon.

Fall is now coming on fast!

Saturday, September 03, 2011

Next step in construction of the tool shed!

So progress is continuing on the tool shed.  Here are the latest photos.

Nice shelves of one side of shed.


This photo really shows the proximity of the tool shed to the potting bench area. And I also get a real feel of how the tool shed is going to work out.

 The plywood is now covered with tar paper before it ultimately it will be covered with shingles.

The door has been cut out of the paper, so it is looking better! Can hardly wait for the next step.