In the past we've had a nice garden on one side of our house, but pigs have destroyed it three times. We hope they don't venture into this side of the yard this time!
We bought a pig trough last year when we had planned to do an aquaponics system, but due to several reasons, it never happened, so we decided to turn it into a raised planter instead.
A couple of weeks ago we bought cinders, enriched soil and chicken manure and with the help of the young man that helps us in the yard, the trough was filled with cinders in bottom for good drainage - the trough has small holes in the bottom - then several bags of soil and one of the manure mixed in - I planted a few things we had in little pots; ruffled red kale, bunching onions, chives and garlic chives, also a couple of tomato plants (one bush and one vining) and then scattered mizuna, mesclum and spinach seeds.
At the time, we placed black plastic in an area underneath and in front of the trough to kill the grass and weeds underneath. We anchored it with large rocks.
The brown and yellow building seen in the background is the studio/cabin that sits in front of our yard. Our 'front' yard extends just to the back wall of the cabin.
Kale, chives, garlic chives, scallions, mesclun mix, bush tomato growing on one half of the trough. On the side you can't see there is a vine tomato which is being trained to go up a tomato cage, mizuna, some very thin fine chives, more meclun and baby spinach.
Two weeks later, almost everything in the trough is looking pretty good although not everything came up, but we can now see where we have space to plant something else.
We decided that instead of the rocks framing and anchoring the black plastic, we would get some concrete blocks with the larger holes for a neater edge and also so we could use them as 'planters'. To be able to do this, we had to move two small banana trees that were planted where the blocks form a corner. They were planted in another area of the yard.
Today we moved the rocks, placed the blocks and filled them with the enriched planting soil and planted a few things we also had in small pots. We will be moving the small clump of papayas that is now growing in the middle of the plastic covered area and placing them closer to our front lanai, area not viewable to the left of the photo. Where the blocks end on the right of the photo, we will be doing a small rock garden and plant a few spreading herbs.
Nasturtiums planted in the short section of the block L, a curry plant in the near corner and 8 holes planted with Italian parsley. In the ones where you can't see any green, Anthony planted some bok choy and more spinach.
Across the area from where the trough and block area is located, which is just in front of our own front lanai, we're slowly cleaning out most of the ornamentals and we have planted a few baby bananas. Today Anthony cleared a small area, about 3 square feet, and planted some corn we had coming up as seedlings. By the corn he planted some vine beans and in the center a few yellow squash seeds. The beans will go up the corn stalks and the squash will cover the ground area, providing moisture.
This is called "the three sisters" and it is an ancient method used by Native Americans
To do this he cut empty tubes of toilet tissue in half, placed them partway into the ground in the garden bed, filled almost halfway with soil that has been already mixed with a small amount of fert; planted 2-3 seeds in eachm added a sprinkling of soil and watered. This trick makes it harder for birds to dig out the seeds and for slimy slugs to climb into it...the cardboard will eventually decompose and become part of the soil in the garden bed.
The tomato bush in the trough is not even a foot tall and it already has three little tomatoes. I'm not sure what variety as this was given to me sometime ago.
In the next few days we will start planting inside the blocked area and place a few stepping stones inside to make it easier to access everything.
....and that is how our garden grows...we hope!
