The Magic of Gardening

I have always liked the idea of gardening but the thought of being out in the heat of summer always kept me from doing it.

I was recently reading an article about vertical gardening and became excited about the prospect of adding a vertical garden to my yard. My yard is bordered by two wooden fences, the house and a cinderblock building. My idea was to put a frame up on the unattractive cinderblock building to support the grid required for installing the vertical gardening system. This idea wasn't going to work for several reasons, the most important being that the owner of the building didn't want me to put anything up on the wall and I was concerned about water intrusion on the building.

I wasn't going to be deterred however and consulted a local company, (Nola Kitchen Gardens and Compost), that specializes in installing kitchen gardens. After our consultation they came and began the process by laying down cardboard to kill the grass and weeds. After about 2-3 weeks they formed the beds right on the cardboard with Black Cow composted manure, which I had read was the richest potting soil available on the market. They then put down coarse mulch paths and pine straw over the beds to hold moisture and keep the soil cool. They also installed a watering system with a simple timer to water the beds early each morning.

We went to the nursery together and bought organic bedding plants and seedlings to place in the garden. We chose plants that were heat tolerant and that love the sun.

Following the planting I left the country for a month long holiday. Ariel and Heather from Nola Kitchen Gardens came weekly to watch over the garden.

I returned from my holiday to discover this...

The 1st image is Malabar Spinach. The leaves are thick, deep green and delicious. The plant to the right of the spinach is a cucumber vine

The2nd image is a view of the troughs containing flowers and herbs.

The 3rd image is a Papaya tree of which I have 4. They were put in as seedlings about 5 inches tall and look at them now.

The 4th and 5th pictures are Moringa trees, also called a Drumstick tree. This tree grows extremely fast and is drought tolerant, full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

The last 2 pictures are views of the garden from different angles.

I couldn't be more pleased with the results. It's wonderful to be able to go out daily to see what I can harvest.

I highly recommend gardening, even if you've never considered gardening before. We should plant food whenever and wherever we can. It's good to know where your food is grown so why not grow some in your own back yard...