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March 31, 2009 The Garden BEFORE

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I love before and after's on HGTV and in magazines like Better Home's and Garden's. 

So I had to post this picture of the "garden" when we moved in. Chain link fence that on the South side was pretty solid rust. I pulled those tall brown stems out and found out later they were collard greens. Kept all their tomato cages. But my first attempt wasn't much better. Needless to say I didn't even bother with taking a picture or if I did I haven't found them. I basically had planted the usual row garden like my father and I did in Franklin Park (suburb of Chicago at the SE corner of O'Hare). Well come July after our wedding, break-in while home, and then honeymoon that added up to 3 weeks of neglect and it was all weeds. So that fall, I double dug and buried 3 yards of leaves (ours, neighbor to South, and parents). But it still didn't drain so I researched and decided to recruit my husband to build me raised beds. Not only did we actually grow more produce than weeds but this was so much, much more aesthetically pleasing.



2010 Garden
Here's the garden with the first four raised beds. It fit right next to house and I still used the old garden's wood picket fence to divide it from back yard and keep dog out. More from 2010.
Sunflowers as big as the house!

Sweet potato vine for decoration!

Before Pat built me the trellis' for tomatoes.

So then I felt the garden needed to be bigger. It was a great start but I wanted MORE tomatoes and MORE space for things like Asparagus. And I also realized it'd be much cheaper if I started as much as I could from seeds. So the first thing built for the 2011 Garden was actually for inside. 

Plant stand getting pretty full.


Needed a lot more "dirt" so my friend, Mike LaFollette helped me out. He brought me Better Earth  compost. Even better than top soil or dirt.

Herb Garden
The view of the garden goes all the way to back fence.


A view going back again.

So this garden went very well. Nothing's perfect but big improvement again from 2010. So 2012 is about where this blog starts. I keep trying to make it more beautiful, more productive, more efficient and more sustainable. It's a project. Happy Digging!

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