Finished planting everything in our organic home garden a few days ago and wanted to share a photo of the plot with you all! This year we are growing edamame, chickpeas, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, sweet red pepper, jalapeño pepper, garlic chives, cabbage, eggplant, peanuts, spinach, arugula, pac choy, and kale in the bed, and lavender, mint, oregano, rosemary, dill, cilantro, and parsley in pots!
Working with the native soil here (or lack thereof, rather) has been an interesting challenge. The ground is pretty much entirely comprised of hard clay. So we've had to till it up quite a bit and mix in some shale to hopefully allow for maximum water seepage and aeration to take place. Then we added some organic compost and soil over top of all that (mixed it in a bit as best as we could) in order to provide the most optimal conditions for the plants as we prepared for planting.
Also, we got a nice little shower filter to filter out chlorine and other chemicals in addition to bacteria and various additional potential contaminants from the tap water and repurposed it to fit between the outside spigot and the garden hose. I can already tell with the herbs that they like the water way better -- it is a pretty dramatic difference, to be honest!
Unfortunately we have had some uninvited furry visitors coming to check out the goods so have had to use fox urine to deter them... Man, that stuff is stanky. But it works pretty well, and we are very much looking forward to the harvest now that our garden seems to be relatively safe and sound!
I am totally excited to chat with you all on this subject, so please let me know have any gardening tips, comments, or questions!