Maximizing My Courtyard
Sharon February 5th, 2009
Wanna see a sketch of my place? Or part of it, anyway? http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2009/02/creating-base-plan.html
This is the courtyard of our property that I’ve been turning into a combination food forest and potted garden – Aaron made a sketch of it as an example of how to draw a useful base plan for your own garden. One of my goals for this class is to really optimize our use of the space, which has several advantages:
1. It is much warmer than the rest of the property – it is a south facing space sheltered on three sides. In addition, the walkway and the cement slab porch soak up heat pretty nicely.
2. It has the best soil on the property – it was trucked in for my husband’s grandparents garden, something I’ve written about here in this essay (“Sure as G-d Made Little Green Apricots”). Not sure where they got it, but that stuff kicks ass compared to the heavier, wetter soil that came with the house.
3. It is right outside the kitchen door – and thus is is zone 1 in permaculture terms – the perfect space to put the things we need most. There are glass doors (which I forgot to indicate to Aaron, thus screwing up his design) off the kitchen that go straight onto the slab porch.
Here’s what I do with it so far, but I’ll gladly take suggestions. Most of the large beds inside the enclosure now have tender fruit trees – two apricots, two dwarf peaches and two quinces. Along with a bunch of Hansen’s Bush Cherries, a couple of hazels and a grapevine, (oh, and a spirea I can’t get out from the narrow space between the slab and the walkway, so its staying – very pretty) that pretty much takes up all the space I’ve got for larger plants. But other than a lot of comfrey (underplanting the trees) , some bulbs and galliardas for pretty and pennyroyal run rampant (along with some ivy), my low plantings are more limited than they should be.
I run containers along the walkway and cover much of the slab with them. The slab is also where indoor flats move in and out in springtime and where potted plants are put out in fall and then back in at night as the temps fluctuate. Oh, and there’s a grill and a picnic table out there.
The two beds on the side are herb beds, made with cement blocks, one for herb teas and the other for culinary herbs. I really love the cement block beds, because they’ll never rot (unlike the wooden ones we’ve got) and the little holes are great for planting pretty small plants – dianthus, johnny jump up, curly parsley, etc….
My goals are to organize the space better, especially the slab, which gets cluttered with my pots, to underplant more useful things (wild ginger, sweet woodruff and ramps underneath the shady apricots, alpine strawberries along the edges, and….? And to do more vertical stuff – besides my grapevine I want another maypop and to make the cinnamon vine I have stop crawling over the slab 
.
In the long term, I’ve thought about insulating the slab and putting a greenhouse on it – but so far no money for that.
Suggestions? Ideas? What are you doing with your smaller spaces?
Sharon
- garden , garden design
- Comments(2)
A water feature might be nice – the sound of running water is so calming – and you can ‘child proof’ by placing some mesh across the ‘pond’ area just under the top of the water level so it can’t be seen – this has the added advantage of keeping predators away from any fish you may like to add, but will allow frogs access….
Placing thirsty plants nearby allows them to take advanage of any splashes
Michelle
wow, 2 quinces….as in kinda yellow related to apples and pears and roses quinces? If so, I’ve got a neat collection of quince recipes invented or adapted by me in order to use the 3 garbage bags of quinces given to me for our school fair stall every year ….then the owners of the tree take several ute loads to the tip. Very productive when they get established, and tough too. Make great jelly by themselves and with other fruits – Quince and raspberry is great. This year I’m experimenting with changing a mango kuchela recipe to use quinces instead of green mangoes. Regarding the greenhouse, if you can get straw, what about a little balehouse using a recycled window or similar? they are not a permanent addition but when the bales get too skanky they mulch the garden and you make a whole new one.
Heather