Starting Out: Gardening & Urban Farming

Today, I thought it’d be a good day to document what my front and backyard gardens actually look like, so you can see my starting point.

To clarify, we do rent this place. So, we can’t immediately destroy the concrete and replace it entirely with soil – which is what I’d prefer.

This is what our backyard looks like:

As you can see, there's a confusion of chairs. Those two bikes are mine.

The previous tenants didn’t seem to maintain the backyard garden that well.

In the middle of the gardening space, there’s a janky plastic chair, and random plastic bags strewn on the ground:

The left corner is oddly barren:

It isn't clear where the concrete stops and the soil starts.

The right side is better, as a small wall of bricks makes sort of a raised bed, ensuring that that part of the garden is actually raised off the concrete.

But, there are dog toys strewn about, and part of that side contains a strange area that looks like it’s been tilled for no reason:

Seriously, what is it with these plastic chairs?

There’s unfortunately also a pile of trash that the landlord left, between our fence and the neighbor’s fence.

Doesn’t look good.

The front yard, thankfully, looks like someone actually took care of it:

I love the massive dandelion – can’t wait to cut it up and eat it ASAP. But I don’t know what the huge plant is. I’m wondering if it’s an edible green.

I also took the opportunity to check my storm gutters and downspouts – as I’ll cover in my next post.