Garden Evolution
The evolution of my garden, a timeline from a bare grass lawn to a bounty of food.
November 2019
How the front yard looked when I bought the house, complete with a patchy, lumpy lawn.
June 2020
Learning my first lesson about gardening in a hot climate: MULCH! Also that it's a lot of work to water by hand.
August 2020
First experimental patch of sheet mulching the lawn and adding an arch made of cattle panels and T-posts.
January 2021
Peeling up the lawn was a massive effort, bermuda grass puts up a fight!
March 2020
Peak pandemic meant lots of free time, started the first of the raised beds with zero clue what I was doing.
August 2020
First summer, with a brown lawn and a patch of veggies.
January 2021
Added five fruit trees in barrels, to avoid roots interfering with the gas line that runs underground here.
February 2021
Widened the single car driveway, no more car shuffling!
May 2021
First janky iteration of an irrigation system.
July 2021
Second summer, didn't understand seedling spacing and waaay over planted. Dubbed it "The Chaos Garden."
December 2021
ChipDrop! Got yards and yards of wood chips to play with.
March 2022
Irrigation system version 2.0, much neater and ditched the sprinkler heads for drip lines.
February 2022
Burying the lawn with wood chips is a whole lot of work.
June 2022
Went tomato crazy and started seeds of 27 different kinds of heirlooms. Ended up with ~75 plants stuffed all over.
June 2022
Third summer, starting to get the hang of growing in Riverside.
April 2023
Adding more raised beds and upgrades to the irrigation.
July 2023
A cool wet spring followed by sudden high heat proves a challenge. Also encountered new pests and diseases.
October 2023
Current state of things. Garden's in the awkward transition from warm to cool crops, and could use a solid dose of attention.