The Garden Update: Permaculture, Food Growing, Herbs and Tomatoes Aplenty

Been documenting my garden progress on Instagram. Next time I'll document my process in detail!

I've been quiet on the gardening front these days, it's just been to fun to immerse myself in growing, harvesting and devouring the goods without slowing down to capture the process with my SLR. I pedantically photograph most of my processes (even house cleaning, organizing sometimes!) so it was nice to have a space where I could just work without stopping. This year has given me my largest crop of my favorite feast, the tomato, and more herbs than I can eat.

Our raised beds when they first started. They're overflowing with goodness to eat now.

First, let's look at my growing space. I'm an apartment dweller but boyfriend's offered me his large back yard for full growing goodness. There's a tall staircase on his deck that used to connect to an above-ground pool. When I climb it and survey the land offered to me I always flash to the famous scene from The Lion King. It's so much more land to work with than is pictured, I could grow enough to completely feed myself and then some if I had set aside time and planning for it.

I volunteer at a community permaculture garden to learn the ropes on this style of growing. First photo, we're planting out first tree. Second photo, delicious food in raised beds.

All that land confronts me, daunts me. With everything else going on in my life I'm taking it slow out there, maintaining one raised bed, but planning to transform the space into a thriving  herb, fruit, and vegetable garden. I've been volunteering with Our Fertile Earth, a group that's working to transform unused land into food gardens across the city, and learning permaculture techniques along the way. Permaculture is both a thriftier and more environmentally friendly way to grow, where you mimic the natural environment rather than adding store bought soil and fertilizer  I can't wait to put it to work in my own garden and share the progress where!

So expect many more updates on the gardening and foraging front on Thrift Core. I may put growing on the back burner from time to time but documenting my garden was one of the big initial reasons why I started blogging! I can't wait to share more progress.

Been growing anything lately? Got any garden tips to share OR would you like me to write any gardening tips in particular? I think I want to try an indoor herb garden DIY...

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