I thought it would be fun to blog about our gardening experiences for this year (2015). My husband and I live in Elk Grove, CA in a Del Webb community. We have very little space to garden so we have come up with efficient ways to grow food and to assist my husband (he uses a wheelchair) to access the garden as well. Besides our garden at home we are members of the Elk Grove Community Garden and have two-ADA plots which are raised 16 inches and measure approx 4 x 8. We grow only organic vegetables and fruit at the community garden as well as our home garden. On top of all of this we live in California and are in our fourth year of a drought. So we water wisely and everything is on a drip system or I gather water from our showers and sinks to hand water the plants.
This is what we have planted:
In October 2014 we started 43 "Music" garlic cloves in our home raised garden bed which measures 3 x 8. The garlic is now three feet high and should be ready to harvest in June. The garlic fills our entire raised garden bed so we had to create new garden beds for seasonal veggies and fruit. We have three-stock tanks that measure 24" x 24" x 6'. One of the stock tanks has three varieties of blueberries. The other stock tanks have seasonal veggies, soy beans, snap peas, carrots and Mexican sour gherkins. We also have two pots that contain one blueberry each (we love blueberries) and two pots that contain Bush Slicer cucumbers and three pots that contain tomatoes (Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Sweet Million and Indigo Blue). We also have one Eversweet pomegranate that is growing on a trellis by our fence. Our community garden planters have four tomatoes, Mortgage Lifter, SunSugar, Indigo Blueberry and Cherokee Purple as well as two Bush Slicer cucumbers. The community garden donates most of the food to our local food bank. There are 84 plots and last year close to 5,000 lbs of organic veggies and fruit was donated. We are hoping to increase that amount this year.
Like I said we have no room in our yard and every inch counts. I also grow Iris, clematis (on trellises), salvia, flax, yellow dogwood, pineapple sage, a Japanese maple "Bloodgood", some bamboo, Cousin Itt plant, Chinese lantern, Meyer lemon tree (in pot) and assorted succulents. I like color and texture in our small yard (really just a long patio that wraps around the fence). So you have an idea on our gardening selections and what has worked for us. Of course all gardening in local and we have had to make adjustments in the past 2 1/2 years that we have been here. But, so far so good.
I will provide updates on our gardening adventures this year and share how we are adjusting to the drought. Today, April 18, 2015 it is close to 85 degrees. That is hot for this time of year. We can only water on Wednesdays and Sundays so we are adjusting.
I have attached some photos of our "gardens".
Community Garden
These are photos of our home veggie/fruit beds:
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