An Inspiring Garden

Last summer, my daughter began her hunt for peas and strawberries - I hope the garden will be a big part of her future.

Last night I watched an episode of Growing a Greener World, where sustainable living and modern homesteading were highlighted. Part of the show was about a blogger, Erica, I've been following for years at Northwest Edible. On a third of an acre in Seattle (that's huge) she grows a good portion of her food – including all of her produce from April to October. I like her attitude towards meal planning from a garden, as it isn't like going to the grocery store. Instead meals need to be made out of what is ready to harvest. She describes her efforts as “trying to move away from a real consumption based lifestyle and move towards a more productive based lifestyle.”

My garden last summer - from the right angle it looks fantastic

The show was filmed in the fall and her garden looked fantastically crammed with fruit and vegetables including grapes over her massive chicken coop. Her end season garden looked lush to almost a tropical extent (she must have a better watering system than me) and brimming with vegetables without evidence of gaps where seeds didn't sprout or young plants met an early end due to slugs and cutworms. I assume she cleaned up her garden for the film crew – if they were coming to shoot in my garden I would be out there for days cleaning it up. Even for visiting family I crack out the weed whacker to trim back the morning glory infested grass around the raised beds (In the near future I'm going to mulch these paths).

Gratuitous sunflowers from last summer

As an international boundary and small body of water is all that separates her garden and mine, what she can grow so can I. Although I don't have a third of an acre to work with, I certainly will take inspiration from what she and her family have done.