Joel's Vegetable Garden!

Joel's Vegetable Garden

- A blog about gardening and the joy of simpler life

Hey! My name is Joel. I am Chinese. I live in Southern California. I have a backyard facing south, most of which is the lawn, surrounded by an oak tree, an Australia Arcacia tree, and several palm trees. Last year the Arcacia tree died, leaving a sunny spot of a decent size. This spring we started a raised-bed vegetable garden. Inspired by many bloggers I created this blog 'joel's vegetable garden' to share the joy of gardening. 

Here is the spot!

The vegetable garden consists of two 4 feet by 8 feet, raised beds, which we bought from HomeDepot. We have some wood left from the old fence (yeah the fence is new!), and we could have made the beds ourselves. But it could be a lot of work and time was not waiting (it was already April!). The beds were very easy to install, and look nice. My only hope is they can last longer. 

So far I have planted all four beds and put on some tomato cages and supports for cucumbers even though they don't need them right now. In the near right bed are four tomato plants and I planted some basil seeds in between; in the far right bed I planted a row of Japanese cucumber, a row of lettuce, a cantaloupe plant, and a zucchini plant. In the near left bed are an heirloom tomato plant, three pepper plants, and some herb seeds in between. The far left bed has one cherry tomato plant (seed), a rosemary, an English lavender, and some flower seeds.

It already seems crowded. It is my first time of doing a vegetable garden. Hopefully next time I will have better sense of spacing.   

For the rest of the garden I designed to include perennials and fruit trees because they need less care. Along the wood fence are some azaleas and one heavenly bamboo, which I hope can give the garden some Asian touch. Along the wall next to the compost bin are two Meyer lemon trees and one bougainvillea. I like the fragrance of lemon blossoms in the winter. I envision when I work on some cool-season vegetables this winter, the fresh smell from the blooming lemon flowers will be extremely soothing and rewarding.