Gardening in a Small Yard

Our home was built in 1896 and sits on an extremely small lot - 50 by 150 feet.  Between the house, the almost 4 car garage and the huge driveway there is not much yard.  Plus the two dogs need a place to roam and the kids still use the swing-set and sandbox and this gives me even less room to plant a garden.

Our dogs have the invisible fence to keep them better contained and so they are unable to get close to the little picket fence in the back yard.  I tell people I have been square foot gardening before it became popular as few years ago I dug up the grass to about 2 feet from the fence and started my garden.  I have about 56 feet of fence which I plant along.  Over 10 feet is strawberries and this year I planted beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, spinach,  cucumbers and carrots in the rest of the garden

In this picture you can see in the very back the strawberries and the numerous varieties of cans are my tomatoes and peppers.  I have 12 peppers planted (mostly bell and some jalapeno) and 18 tomato plants of various varieties.  I planted climbing peas along the fence itself.  The foreground of the picture is my row of beans along with some lettuce and spinach and a few cucumber plants.



I love squash, zucchini and pumpkin but due to the fact they spread out so much I have never planted them.  I always rely on friends and family to give me their extras, but this year I thought I would try to grow my own and have them grow upwards.  I took some stakes the city used to stake some trees on our boulevard 8 years ago and dug them into the ground next to my 3 season porch and behind the day lilies.

From the left to the right I planted summer squash, the German/Russian pumpkin my friend gave me last year, zucchini and buttercup squash.  I have never tried this and therefore it is an experiment, but I am hopeful.

The German/Russian pumpkin from seeds I kept last year.

Buttercup squash from seeds I collected last year.

I put my potato "containers" on the driveway.
You can see the strawberries in the background.

Our soil in the Red River Valley is clay based and not great for potatoes and therefore I have never tried planting them, but on Pinterest I saw an idea of growing the potatoes above ground.  During clean-up week I found the rusted metal frame (most likely from a fire pit) and used it as a base for the chicken wire.  I then took some left over alfelfa from our recently deceased Guinea Pig and lined the wire and then added free dirt from the local landfill/yard waste facility in town.  Between the layers of dirt I added the cut up seed potatoes.  I had a few left over and made another cylinder out of chicken wire and planted a second crop.

The 2nd potato column made from chicken
wire and held together with  plastic twist ties. 

Just this week the potatoes on the top sprouted out from the soil and today I saw a tiny sprout coming from the side.  I hope in a few weeks I will have a potato bush growing out from the chicken wire.  I put these on my driveway and figure in the fall all I will have to do is pick up the chicken wire and let the dirt fall out with the potatoes among it.  This will make it easy to find the potatoes and then I will scoop up the dirt and throw it into my garden and hose of the driveway. That is the plan anyway.

From this tiny garden I usually harvest enough beans to last us most of the year (I blanch and freeze them) and enough strawberries to last us about half the year (I also freeze them).  I am able to can about 30-40 quarts of tomatoes, but I am always asking friends and neighbors for more as I need another 20-30 quarts.  Not only do I can tomatoes, but I also can stewed tomatoes and Rotel.  That is why I have planted the peppers.

I have never planted peas, but I did this year as I decided on a climbing variety of snap peas and hope they will do well along the fence.  I planted a pickling variety of cucumbers and will try to make pickles for the first time ever.  As to the squash/zucchini/pumpkins I am hoping to have a bout 2 pumpkins, 4 zucchinis, 2 summer squash and 8-10 buttercup and that will be enough for my family.  I will freeze (not can) the pumpkin and grate the zucchini and freeze that.  The butter cup squash I will keep as long as possible, but when I have to I will also bake and then freeze.  The summer squash we will eat as they mature.

My garden does not provide all the vegetables we eat, but quite a lot.  This helps us save money when it comes to the grocery bill, plus it is fun to have a garden and see the results of our labor throughout the summer.  Now if it would just quit raining and the sun would shine a bit more my plants would be a lot happier.  This is one of the coldest and wettest years ever in the Red River Valley.  Such a late start to the growing season may result in a smaller harvest.  Let's hope for a long fall and late winter.