The Big Garden Plan

I am so excited about the backyard renovation that I can hardly stand it!

The backyard, the way it stands right now, consists of grass pathways with 3' deep garden beds dug in next to the house on the south and west sides, a longer tomato and pepper bed along the fence, and a small sitting area across from the container-covered wooden porch. Past the porch (to the north side of the yard), is an R2D2-shaped charcoal barbecue and an umbrella-style clothesline.

Oh, and did I mention it is small? From the house to the back fence measures roughly 10'. Why? There's an easement in the front yard for the sewer, and the house has to be set back a certain amount from the street. The house is also kinda big for the lot: 4 bedrooms, an office, 2 bathrooms, a big great-room and what technically is considered a 2 car garage (which would be true if and only if the 2 cars were compacts- ours aren't- and if the garage was not full of stuff).

The lack of space in the backyard is further compounded by a lack of gutters which renders the garden plots directly against the house nearly useless as they flood when it rains heavily, which it does frequently here in Florida in the summertime. On the north side of the house along the fence is also a no-dig zone. That's where the cable lines are all (mostly) dug in.

My beloved has also expressed the desire not to have the front yard look like a working farm, so the backyard needs to be where the magic happens. Oy.

The basic plan is to have gardens, not grass, for most of the backyard, with a small barbecuing/sitting area with pavers underneath (and hopefully umbrellas overhead) for recreation and manly cooking. We'll be making walkways of stepping stones (12 x 12 white concrete pavers @ $0.99 each) in the flood-prone areas so that the backyard can still be navigated.

To conserve water, keep down the weeds, and look pretty, we'll be laying down a dense 5-6" carpet of mulch (from the City- backbreaking to get it, but free) over a layer of newspaper (biodegradable weed cover), with a network of seeper hoses snaked between the two.

We're taking one section at a time, for sanity's sake. The goal is to get the south side of the garden done this weekend. The seeper hoses are arranged for the entire south side of the garden, and through the pepper and tomato bed running along the fence. The cow manure/compost mix has been. There's about 2" of mulch so far, so this means a few trips to the mulch-yard tomorrow.

With every shovel-ful of mulch that gets filled in, and with every seed I start on paper and plan I draw on paper, I get a little happier.