Resilience - An Urban Garden Pictorial

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Anything's possible if you put your mind to it.

The day after we made settlement on Chateau Bidet - showcased, by the way, in the July '94 issue of Better Hovels & Outhouses - we applied to the City for ownership of the abandoned lot next door. Municipal gears grind slowly but fine. Seven years later we got the lot for $1 on condition we improve it. Up until this time we had absolutely no "outdoors" at all, except for a few window boxes on the second floor.

We began improvements by cutting a side door out to the new space. Next, we had a deck built over part of the lot. Then we began filling the lot with a hodgepodge of pots and planters. Unfortunately, houses on two sides of the garden blocked off all direct light from 9AM on. No serious gardening attempts made much sense, though we did grow very healthy moss and ferns.
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Cut to - May 2006
Renovations to the two houses adjacent this plot opened the future garden to sunlight for the first time in twelve years. In the picture below, the sites aren't cleaned up yet, nor are the cyclone fences in place yet either.
We started with a concrete slab - 13'-6" x 24' - and covered it over with bricks in a herringbone pattern. The planter in the center is an oil storage tank I salvaged from an empty building nearby, cut in half.

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Cut to - Oct. 2007
We live in a neighborhood here in Philly called New Kensington. The locals are sometimes referred to as Kenzos. I have a propensity for naming things. There's a name for people who name things, but the name escapes me at the moment. Oh well, maybe it's OCD. At any rate, the big planter became "Kenzo Heights." With all the new sunlight, things were beginning to grow like weeds. In fact, the weeds grew weeds. Anyone who's gotten into gardening knows that Morning Glories are God's revenge for would-be gardeners. They drop millions of seeds, and the seeds remain viable for four to five years. Eradicating Morning Glories has been a multi-year endeavor, but finally successful.

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Cut to - May 2008
The Morning Glory beds were simply soil laid on top of the concrete. Before planting season in '08, I began a new expansion of Les Jardins du Bidet. With a Skil saw and a concrete blade, I cut away the cement, dug out the rubble underneath, and stuffed the deep holes with a mixture of topsoil, compost, and peat moss. The resultant plots became "East of Eden" at the back of the garden, and "The South Forty", on the right because it's, like, 2' x 20'. Clever, huh.
Meanwhile, stuff grew in Kenzo Hts.; bush beans, garlic, strawberries, lettuce, herbs.

The new plots would produce cucumbers, tomatoes and pole beans. (Harvest season was rewarding.)

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Cut to - April 2009
With success heaping upon success, and a grand total of 324sq.ft. (including walkways), it became evident that Chateau Bidet Acres needed to once more expand to expand production. Kenzo Heights was cut up into little pieces and put out on the sidewalk for the itinerant salvagers. In a grand ceremony involving libations and Sacred Compost sprinkling, the Heights designation was transferred to the erstwhile unnamed hydrangea bed, and the new bed in the center was christened "The Motherland." It's 5'-6" x 11'-6" - a whopping 63sq.ft.

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Cut to - May 1 2009
Ten days later we have little green things poking their way out of the ground. French pole beans on the left. Lettuces and spinach up the center. Poblano peppers on the right edge of The Motherland. Hardneck garlic, a few Brussels Sprouts, and eventually a couple of types of tomato plants in the South Forty.

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Cut to - May 30 2009
Going like gangbusters.

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Cut to - June 11 2009
Left the gangbusters in the dust. Now we're cooking with gas.

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Cut to - June 28 2009
Now we're picking young string beans, and a few cherry tomatoes. From here on out, it's picking, freezing, oh... and eating fresh veggies.

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A Denizen of the Garden
In addition to bees, bumblebees, and various insects making merry on the plants, we had a small swarm of Preying Mantises. Mantises are amazing. They're the only insect that can turn their heads. If you pause and quietly look at them, they turn their heads and look back at you. It's bitchin' cool.

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Here's something you don't see everyday
This baby Mantis is sitting on a Sage leaf. It's about 1/2" long.

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Hope you enjoyed the tour. Flowers and herbs are also in profusion all around the backyard; mostly in pots; roses, Bleeding Hearts, Columbines, Nasturtiums, Chinese Forget-Me-Nots, Impatiens, Violets, Clematis...

OH! And lest I forget... we have a Rosemary bush that's fifteen years old. It comes inside in winter. The little blue flowers are sublime.


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Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

That is BEAUTIFUL! Well done! Isn't it amazing how much food you can grow in a tight space?

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Alison Wunderland's picture

A year or two later we inadvertently had a volunteer squash of indeterminate type go apeshit and completely cover over the garden. It wouldn't produce anything, but was blocking out all the light, it got the chop.

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Gerrit's picture

is beyond awesome :=) In fact, this is frakking (sorry, I'm watching Battlestar Galactica on Shomi :=) awesome. Have I said that already? It's a classic example of urban gardening - from nothing to food, community, birds, bees, insects, even Mantis, sacred to the San people (Bushmen) of the Kalahari. Mantis once was one of their prime deities (eq. of Zeus) and is still sacred.

It's a real inspiring story too: the sequence of photos over time is just wonderful to see - step by step progress. And very importantly, the story showed how you folks adapted to differing circumstance - that's what resilience is. w00t! And I bet the garden has brought you many visitors and helpers over time. And parties, let's not forget the parties.

TY mate, enjoy your day.

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

gulfgal98's picture

I cannot believe how you were able to turn a patch of concrete into a very viable and productive garden! This story along with the pictures is truly inspiring! Good

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Lookout's picture

Wonderful story and a good job. Something to work on for a lifetime.

Here's a shot of our little garden from the end of the summer season last year.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Alison Wunderland's picture

And your general location? What's the reddish stuff, some sort of Salvia?

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This is our first gardening season in a lush and moderate climate after New England's short growing season. First thing I did once we unpacked was remove all grass from the backyard (forgetting to leave a few feet for the cat; must replant a square for furball relief). The yard's perimeter is now ringed with baby dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees, including a wee fig donated by a neighbor from her tree. Herbs overwintered in pots, along with strawberries. Blueberries, raspberries, and marionberries are in the ground now and perking up, with currants and a gooseberry promised by our realtor from her garden. No space for the elderberries I'd love to have. Three good-sized veg beds are just getting under way. With the two raised kitchen garden beds just off the back door, we can use cold frames for year-round salad greens. Can't wait to get back to canning, freezing, and doing more with the 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator I scored at a yard sale.
We're starting out with much easier space than the terrain from which you coaxed such abundance. Love the photos!

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

try and find a place for those elderberries! They are a powerful anti-viral and are a must to have around for flu season!

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Will see how the space here shapes up. Things mature rapidly in this climate. As you know, a garden is never "done," and that's part of the challenge and reward of gardening.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

Gerrit's picture

The sig line now links the essay page and the resource library page. Danged software counts the code as part of the sig line. $%^&* :=)

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

Alison Wunderland's picture

We need 1-2 Resource Librarians.
Change to: Post links to the Resource Library.

In the Welcome essay, spell Smith correctly. And who is AB? Is that Anonymous Bosch (AB)?
Put the Library link Martha and I use as a .sig at the end of the Welcome essay. See: my garden essay for example.

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Gerrit's picture

we could all learn more together and encourage one another to garden much more better :=) Well, those in warmer climates than Canada anyway. We'll post photos after May 23 Victoria Day Weekend, when our gardening season traditionally opens!

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

mhagle's picture

Very encouraging. It was great to see it evolve over the years.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

Lawn vs Garden.jpg

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Gerrit's picture

ban the first and promote the second. I want to plant our brassicas and some salad greens among our front garden flowers this year. We have a perennial flower and grasses garden in our front yard. It sends out flowers all season long in a familiar sequence - we love to tell the year's advance by the flowers in bloom out front. This year, I want veggies out there with them :=)

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.

Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

amongst the flowers. Many are considered companion plants, in that they either enhance the other plants around them or protect them from insects and other critters. For example, tomatoes taste better when grown with basil. Marigolds repel insects.

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