Seattle has rubbish weather for vegetable gardening. It’s grey, it rains frequently, and our sunshine quotient slacks off in spring and autumn. I’m doubly unlucky in that, despite the great feng shui of my house, our little plot of land is not suited to farming, urban or otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my back garden. Mature trees, deep shade, covered deck off the second level of the house, it’s like a treehouse for grownups. But it’s not suited for vegetable gardening. I’ve also finally put the front gardens into shape, and now that Three Trunks has been taken down, the roses, the lavender, and other flowers are loving the extra sunlight.
So, where to plant a vegetable garden?
I do have this little triangular slice of land on the house’s north side, but the soil is just plain awful. Our cul-de-sac is situated on what used to be a sloping hillside. The developers took all the topsoil from our side of the street and dumped it all on the opposite side of the street to create a wide, level space to build houses. Unfortunately, this left our front garden with no topsoil. Dig down two inches (literally, two inches) past the struggling sod, and you’ll find hard-pan: a compacted, nearly concretized layer of diatomaceous soil that takes no water and allows no roots.
Solution? Raised bed gardening. Sure, but that’s one hell of a lot of work, especially if either my talents or the bit of land prove unsuitable to the task.
Solution? EarthBoxes. (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 