How it All Began ~ Our Urban Rossland Homestead

We purchased our home in November 2012, and it had no edible gardens. We literally started from nothing. Immediately we began landscaping our yard in preparation for spring and our first growing season. Here are some photos and words about that exciting moment for us!

When we purchased our home, our yard space looked nothing like it does in the photo above, despite the fact that in this photo we have only barely started our landscaping. Funny – today, our yard space looks nothing like it does in the photo above either! At the beginning, our tiered backyard was covered in grass, blackberry bushes, all kinds of perennial shrubs, an old unkempt apple tree, and a 55’ spruce tree. We were so excited to start building our gardens, that we didn't take a "before" photo, haha :).

Our first step was removing the spruce + apple trees, the grass and as many of the blackberry bushes + perennial shrubs that we could. It looked something like this:

1st photo below: Lower tier that is now home to our garden beds, with the spruce tree down and the apple tree still standing.

2nd photo below: Lower tier (same as photo 1) with both trees and all of the grass removed. Dan + Calla loving the dirt!

Once all the trees, bushes, shrubs and all of the grass was removed, we began to lay out our garden beds. At the beginning, we started with eight 4’x12’ beds, as seen in the photos below. What we’re doing in the second photo, is sifting through the soil to remove rocks, unwanted debris and wire worms, which are really common when you remove grass from an area. You don’t want wire worms in your garden!

Here is a look at the 8 main beds, after they were initially constructed and sifted through. We used 12’ long 2x12’s as the sides of the beds, and so far they have held up excellently. We don’t put any stains or anything on the wood we use in our garden. Everything is ‘au naturelle’. Often times, we recycle materials from construction sites to use good material that would otherwise end up in the landfill (what a waste!).

In the photo above, at the end, you can also see our potato condos. We tried these, for two seasons. Three condo’s that you add soil to and build up as the potato plants grow. They are said to produce high yields, however, we did not experience much success with them and abandoned the idea after two attempts. Have you tried potato condo’s before? Have you had success with them? Give me a shout and share your experience, miche@eatgrowflourish.com.

After we created our 8 main beds, we turned the slope between the two tiers in our backyard, into a formidable growing space. The slope was originally covered with blackberry bushes, perennial shrubs with massive root balls, lilies, tulips, perennials, perennials and more perennials!! It has been a huge undertaking trying to rid the space of inedible plants in support of vegetation that will feed us. (We relocated a handful of the blackberries – those things are seriously, dangerously prickly!)

Here is a peek at the beginnings of the growing space on the slope:

The black fabric is to help kill off the inedible vegetation on the slope. The bed along the bottom (that is empty in the photo) became our squash bed, which has been home to 25 squash plants for the past 4 growing seasons. Hence the grid / homemade trellis – for the squash to climb up and bask in the sun! At the top of the grid, we created another small bed that runs the length of the entire slope (approx. 26’), and put in a standing trellis, and that is where we have grown our cucumber crops for the past 4 years. Despite the benefits of crop rotation, we kept our squash and cukes here because it was such a fantastic place to grow these crops. This year (2017) however, we’re rotating everything and coming up with a new scheme (follow along throughout the year to see what we’re up to!).

Check out this photo below, with our squash bed lush with green foliage. This photo was from end of Summer 2015, and our dear friend Andre is seen in the background working on the beginning construction of our chicken coop! You might notice as well, that the main beds look different – we eventually (year 2/3) extended almost all of them to be 4’x16’ long....yeah!

Alongside our 8 main beds, potato condos, the large squash bed, and the cuke bed we also planted 6 fruit trees, 8 blueberry bushes, and began building our 3 large raspberry beds, as well as our large perennial / annual herb bed. Today, we harvest enough raspberries for fresh eating AND freezing....we’re getting closer and closer to our goal of growing enough for our family for the year.

Every year, after a long winter of dreaming, planning and bringing to life, we make significant changes to our growing operation. We’ve built, removed, and rebuilt our greenhouse every single year (except this year, we finally nailed it!); we have made big changes to our beds; we’ve added in an extensive composting system; we’ve built a large chicken coop + run; we’ve ruined our blueberry bushes (I promised I would share our mad failures too!); and for the 2017 season we are up and running with a fresh, determined exuberance....... and we’ve got lots to share about what is upcoming for us this season!! I will part this introductory to our homestead with this neat comparison photo. On the left is the photo you saw above, which is Year 3 and the photo on the right is obviously Year 1 prior to any construction of any of our beds. What a difference hey? And to think that Dan and I did nearly ALL of this with our own two hands (definitely we’ve had some amazing helpers throughout the years, that deserve much credit, of course!) – but, my point is, even with a small growing space and a family – you too can grow an abundance of delicious + highly nutritious foods for yourself and your family.

The key word here is priority. If food is a priority for you, this concept is SO possible for anyone!