Last year, Erica started a garden by the driveway at her apartment. It was small and she didn’t end up getting a ton of food from it. Her most plentiful harvested were cherry tomatoes and herbs. Her potatoes and garlic turned out small. Her raspberry bush, blueberry bush, and strawberry plants didn’t provide any fruit at all. Still, she seemed to enjoy the experience.
This year, I wanted to help her make her garden more prosperous. I had her institute a few simple changes to help offset the costs and hopefully lead to a more prosperous garden.
- Planning ahead: at the end of last year, Erica took all her strawberries out of their containers, planted them in the ground, and covered them with leaf litter. They survived the winter along with some garlic bulbs from last year!
- Lessons learned: last year, Erica planted root vegetables in the ground and everything else in containers. Harvesting her root veggies from the clay soil was extremely taxing. This year she will do the opposite
- Starting with seeds: this takes the most work, but hopefully will pay off. By starting with seeds, Erica can grow a wider variety of veggies, especially greens.
- Choosing new plants: Erica thought a lot about what kinds of vegetables and herbs she actually wants to eat/use. New additions are coneflower and chamomile for homemade herbal tea.
Hopefully these changes will help Erica’s garden thrive this year. As always, I will be here to help her out whenever it gets to be too much for her.
-Ella
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