This spring we decided to tear out our front yard grass and create an edible low-maintenance garden.

Before (May 2013):

August:

Plants strategically placed, ready for planting! We hired Lauren from Lily Villa Gardens to design a garden plan. She picked up all the plants, delivered and placed them for us. Then left us to do the fun part of digging and planting. Best gardening tip she gave us: soaking the root ball

The neighborhood kids loved digging in the dirt:

All planted!

We found a guy down the street that sells custom cedar box kits. Super inexpensive and treated to avoid weathering. He dropped them off and Jason and I put them together. Then had a never-ending boatload of fill dirt and compost delivered and applied our upper body strength.

Parking strip before:

A few months later {fresh veggies!}:

The patch of land between our neighbor’s house was unused and turned into a soggy mess during the rainy season. With our narrow driveway it was nearly impossible to not step in mud when getting out of the car.

Before:

We put in pavers and a cedar garden box:

The spot is now a nice shared space we all enjoy, filled with kitchen herbs and flowers:

We detached our downspouts and dug a 2-3 ft deep trench that we filled with gravel to avoid water runoff and create a nice rain garden.  Jason installed driplines throughout the yard and even managed to get them under the sidewalk to reach the garden boxes in the parking strip thanks to some creative use of a pipe and sledgehammer. Along with a timer we managed to avoid the chore of watering throughout the summer!

Love watching our garden grow, especially the sunflowers {Carson’s favorite flower}.

Perennial Edibles:
Blueberries
Cardoon
Strawberries
Column Apple Trees

Other plants:
Hebes
Variety of drought-resistant grasses
Ground covers
Sunflowers and variety of wildflowers
Annual vegetable boxes