I haven’t been in the workshop much. Instead I’ve been digging in the garden. We have this area where we’ve tried have a vegetable garden, but it’s never really worked out. Between water cuts, bugs, diseases and local animals we rarely get anything we can actually eat.
A couple of weeks ago Heather and I went to see Filoli. This is an old estate south of San Francisco with wonderful gardens. It’s a favorite place of ours. One of the gardens they have is called, “The cutting garden,” which supplies cut flowers for the estate. That’s when the idea hit me, instead of being frustrated trying to do a vegetable garden, why not a cutting garden?
We love flowers and they do well in our yard so with the Filoli inspiration we’ve started to convert the little veggie plot. Here’s what it looks like at the moment:
The future cutting garden.
The plan is to rebuild the planter into a number of smaller boxes, improve the drip irrigation and enclose the whole thing in a wire cage to keep the local squirrels, raccoons and possums at bay. This last weekend I dug out much of the poor soil that was here and started cleaning up the area. Heather started some seedlings that we’ll transplant here in a few weeks.
More on this project as the weeks go by.
If you need me – I’ll be out back,
Andrew
Andrew's View of the Week 
That’s a great idea. Hopefully you don’t plant tasty flowers!
Someone inspired me recently to put lemons from our tree into a vase and enjoy them that way so as not to feel guilty when I can’t use them all. We give away a ton, but this is yet another way to enjoy them.
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Well, my wife has already listed a number of flowers that go great on a salad.
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Reading your first paragraph, I got an instant notion that may or may not work so you can still have organic veggies. IF your patio/deck is large enough (I remember seeing small clips of it before), some vegetables do well in pots. With they being on the patio/deck, care and protection would be easier. Anyway, just an idea.
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The problem we have is with small animals, like raccoons, just about the time a veggie is ripe a little critter gets a meal instead of me. Hopefully in the new caged in area, that won’t be an issue any more.
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Brings back happy memories of my allotment.
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We thought about getting an allotment in a community garden, there aren’t that many of those here and the time commitment is more than we have at the moment. So it’s some flowers in the back garden for now.
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Strawberries and peas in my back garden😀
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sounds wonderful.
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My grandparents grew a vegetable garden that fed them and a lot of the family the entire year. Something(s) has happened since the 50’s, and vegetable gardening has become very hard to do on a small scale. Large greenhouses can certainly do it, but the small guy is lucky to get a few tomatoes (maybe). I think your idea is a very interesting one since flowers are food for the soul. 🙂
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We’re looking forward to having lots of flowers for the house.
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A nice idea for bringing colour to the back and introducing it to the house too. Have fun.
Hugs
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It’s great – I get to dig in dirt with really a really big shovel. Better than sand castles at the beach.
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Yay for you! I could talk gardening all day long. Look forward to watching this project evolve.
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My wife is starting the seedlings in their trays this week and likely next week I start building the boxes.
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What a good idea! I think having a dedicated spot is a very good plan. I have flowers that I could cut, but when they’re spread throughout the landscape I typically don’t want to cut them! I might adopt your suggestion. And thanks for the link to Filoli. Next time we’re up visiting our son I would like to try to see it. It is very appealing.
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Yes, we have flowers all over too and never cut them – even the roses we rarely cut to bring in to the house. And you have to see Filoli. It’s not that big and you can see the whole garden in a couple of hours. We like to get up there early for a walk around the garden and then have lunch in their little cafe.
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I will look forward to a splash of colour invading your blog soon…
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Might be a few weeks, but you’ll see some progress.
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I don’t have a garden (too lazy), and a very limited lawn (around here about 30% of every yard is a rock mulch border) — to save water. Not terribly attractive and a real heat sink next to the house. Yet I still have wildlife problems. Rabbits eat my grass! Flowers would be nice, for some color. But I’ll bet rabbits love flowers even more than luscious lawns. A bed like yours with chicken wire over it would be just the thing … but you live too far away to tend it for me.
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I’m glad you have got a wire cage around everything. There’s nothing worse than losing your crops to wild animals. Who would have thought that deer would eat tulips?
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Deer will eat almost any plant. Our problem is with raccoons. They love to dig for worms in our garden. First they dig out the plant, then eat they worms and we clean up the mess. Fun!
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Sounds like a great project, especially since it gets you outdoors and off the screen. I should find something like that…
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Nothing I like better than digging dirt. Well, I also like to breakup concrete with a sledgehammer, but that’s a different project.
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Good grief, you’re a gardener too? A true renaissance man, Andrew.
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I also wash dishes, vacuum rugs and take out the trash. I am a rare find. I am also very humble – likely one of the most humble men out there.
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I’m jealous, waiting anxiously to get out into my gardens
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Out here, there are only three days in January when we can’t garden. Guess, that doesn’t help you be less jealous…
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you know what they say, the grass is always always greener! Enjoy
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with the current water restrictions, we’re not allowed to have grass…
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hah, well ours should be greener then
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Nice to see you busy out in the garden. Looking good.
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It’s great to be out there.
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