Sustainable Saturday - 2012 Suburban Family Garden - July Update!

Since I have been absent from the blogging world for most of this year, I thought I would give a quick update as to what we've been up to.  The family health issues we've been dealing with have improved in some ways, and are more challenging in other ways.

Here is the quick update of where we've been this year.  One of my main goals for Saving Family Green this year was to create the Edible Front Yard.  Due to much shade in our backyard, the idea was to move many of the sun loving plants to the front yard where there are no trees.

We started many of our seeds early and indoors this year.  I based my guidelines for when to plant what on the Farmer's Almanac online in which you can type in your zip code and it will provide you with a chart of dates to start seeds indoors or as transplants outdoors.  I also purchased this year self watering trays from Burpee (Home Depot) which were AWESOME!  I will be using these exclusively next year.  The plants that were started in this system grew quickly and were incredibly healthy seedlings. 

Since the goal was to garden in the Front Yard, I needed a new garden bed.  My very kind husband built this bed for our new garden using some old timbers and corrugated metal panels that we had leftover from our home renovation project.  I will give the full details of this construction project in a later post.

The progress of our garden has been overwhelmingly good this year!  Surprising since in Central Ohio we have had extreme temperatures early in the growing season and little rain.  We are already thinking ahead to the next Summer and drip irrigation system (possibly connected to our rain barrels) to water this new Front Yard garden.

This Front Yard garden has been quite the conversation piece, as my neighbor's are taking notice.  This was another goal I had for this year, Community Awareness of Local Foods and Gardening. 

Here is an update on our 2012 Suburban Family Garden:

Front Yard Garden:

 Included in this garden bed are:

• Edible flowers
• Lettuce (multiple varieties)
• Cutting celery
• Basil
• Tomatoes (multiple varieties)
• Spinach
• Peppers
• Broccoli
• Beans (Pole)
• Onions

Raised Garden Bed (Backyard):

Included in this 4 foot x 8 foot garden bed are:

• Eggplant
• Jalapeno Pepper
• Banana Pepper
• Yellow Pear Tomatoes
• Basil
• Beans (Pole)
• Lettuce

4 foot x 8 foot In Ground Garden Bed (Backyard):

Included in this 4 foot x 8 foot garden bed are:

• Zucchini

Included in this 4 foot x 8 foot garden bed are:

• Beans (Pole)
• Beans (Bush)
• Peppers

Included in this 4 foot x 8 foot garden bed are:

• Cucumbers
• Cantaloupe

This is all 4 - 4 foot x 8 foot In Ground Garden Beds.  The last bed only has peas planted as it receives little sun during the day.

Photo Credit:  Amy Lloyd.

Note:  Some of the links referenced in this post are my referral links.  You can read Saving Family Green's Material Connection Disclosure Policy here. Tweet