Your Guide To Green

Parri’s Instant Garden

Parri lives in the typical desert landscaped home her in Phoenix Arizona.  In the spring of 2008 she decided that she would like to start gardening.  The problem was that there was really no place to garden in her yard as the yard is primarily made up of a 2 inch layer of a magical desert landscape cover called decomposed granite.  Think rough pebbles the size of small marbles.  

She was determined so we scrounged around the storage yard at the Urban Farm and found some 15 gallon tree buckets that we ‘converted’ to planters for her and she was off.  She planted: cucumbers, which never cucumbered; broccoli, which the wild rabbits ate; carrots, which never got taller than an inch; and strawberries, which overgrew the stinky pot (more about this later.)  But with this she was inspired, so we had to rethink the garden and get something bigger in.

But wait there was another option.  She has a small lawn in her back yard, kidney shaped and approximately 12 x 20 feet.  This area could be dug up, however the digging is arduous work and the Bermuda grass comes back very quickly so that did not seem to be a viable idea.  We had to come up with another possibility so we put on our thinking caps and posed the question what is the simplest and least expensive option?

What we decided was to install a raised bed garden (not the best solution for the desert, however the simplest option for her yard) built from 2 x 12 inch 10 foot long wood planks.  Although the wood will deteriorate in 5 to 10 years, for the price that we paid for it ($35) it was a quick solution that fit our criteria.  We also purchased 12 corner brackets, screws and compost.  For a grand total spend of  $70.  THAT was just what the farmer ordered.

I spent two hours picking up the compost and harvesting some great topsoil from the Urban Farm, and an hour at the local hardware store getting the other parts and we were off.  So on a Sunday in March 2009 we began with the intent that by the end of the day we would have a planted garden bed.  

I started at 7:30 am clearing the space and between then and 10 am was able to install the raised bed itself.  Then from 4 to 6 pm we filled and planted the bed with a mixture of 70% composted mulch and 30% topsoil from the Urban Farm which we mixed together nicely and then planted away.

We chose to purchase some transplants from a local organic grower and ended up planting out 4 tomatoes, 3 squash, a cucumber and oh yes the strawberries from the aforementioned stinky pot.