We moved to our current house from a townhouse in Olde Town Arvada…great for walking to the library and out for a beer on the weekends, but pretty tough for gardening. We tried, but it’s hard to grow food for a family of 5 on a 20 square foot balcony.
Now, as March is warming up and we have our first glass of wine out on our patio, it’s time to make this suburban yard our family farm.
Before we get to the pics, here’s a few things to know about our garden:
1. We mulch, alot. Colorado is hot, dry, and hot, and dry. I called a tree company and they dumped a pile on my driveway that took 3 months to spread around the yard. Here’s a great post about mulching, start reading near the middle of the page for the best information. That tree mulch sat several inches deep on our garden plots all winter, and when I pulled it back the surface of the soil was teeming with life…worms, and bugs galore. The last inch or so of chips by the soil had rotted into a nice black dirt.
2. We buy seeds in bulk. I’m working with a pound of peas, 4 ounces of lettuce seed (that should last a few years), and 4 ounces of spinach. We won’t use all that this year, but it sure beats spending good money on packets of seed from your neighborhood store. Figure out the crops you’ll plant a lot and buy those seeds in bulk from a real seed supplier, we use Rocky Mountain Seed Company.
Our first lettuce crop. Planted around March 5th. (Black Seeded Simpson)
I’ve gardened since High School, and have always been most interested in getting the most quantity of delicious food out of each shovel of dirt with the least amount of work. I sprinkle in flowers for the bees and beneficial insects, but for me, it’s all about the peas, the beans, the tomatoes, and the squash.
Last spring, I took a sod cutter to the part of our front yard that many people gravel over and park RV’s on. In many ways, I think we’re going back to the WWII idea of a victory garden. Now, after a semi-decent season, we’re starting early and plan to have those four 25×3 foot strips of dirt growing food from March to November.
I also will be working to make other sections of our lawn grow food…like it or now, we have quite a bit of grass, and it’s good to have for the kids. It gets watered 2 times a week and costs us a few hundred dollars a summer to keep greenish brown, so I’ll be digging out a few spots to plant viney crops like cukes, pumpkins, and squash in our back yard lawn. 
The foundation of ever good suburban farm…the compost pile. All of our organic waste has gone into this pile since we moved in…leftover food that the kids didn’t eat (lots of that), kitchen scraps, even a few bones and stuff they say you’re not supposed to compost. I also grab my neighbor’s grass clippings in the spring and early summer when he is bagging them, and mix those with brown things like dead plants, wood chips, and whatever else is around.
Trying out a technique called Lasagna Gardening. The grass grows right up to the fence. I started with a few layers of newspaper, then wood chips, then 3-4 inches of compost and a layer of wood chips (just enough to keep the top of the soil from drying out on the sun and wind.) For planting, I’ll probably just push pre-sprouted pea seeds into the compost and cover again. The flagstone is to keep the area contained but also to keep the soil from drying out.
The first mint has popped up through the mulch!
