2. The Backyard Design or Layout

The advantage of starting from scratch is that you have no one else's mess to clean up or remove. In fact when we bought this property the only things found in the backyard were a garden shed and a 75' cyprus tree which was very quickly removed. The garden shed is the only original construction.

In designing this backyard we needed to take into consideration the following factors;

1. That we wanted fruit trees that would eventually grow and create shaded areas on their eastern and northern sides.

2. That we wanted to grow vegetables in places that would receive the maximum sunlight over the course of the day.

3. That the greenhouse would have to be located in an area that didn't shade anything else out, and

4. That there would need to be continuous access to all growing areas, ease of planting, maintaining and harvesting.

And these factors would determine "where things went".

First up was the greenhouse which needed to be placed in the south western corner.

As they say, sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Any shade created by the greenhouse goes straight over the side fence on the southern side of the property.

The horseshoe-shaped central garden area was an idea of an astute neighbour, who we shall call "landsupremo" for the continuation of this blog. To utilise the southernn fence line and eventually block out any view of the greenhouse "landsupremo" devised a semi-horseshoe configuration that would enable us to plant our apple and citrus trees without them throwing shade on anything else other than the fenceline, as follows;

Likewise on the opposite side a mirrored horseshoe return was created to enable the planting of a lime, olive, peach and pear tree. This was not built on the fenceline to enable raised growing beds to be constructed to take advantage of sunlight on the northern side of the backyard, as follows;

The final step was to construct raised growing beds in the remaining areas. These were built with a northern aspect or faced the northern side and therefore gained full benefit of the sun over a significant period of time during the day. The first bed was constructed against the southern boundary in front of the greenhouse as follows;

This bed has produced wonderful garlic and is now producing monstrous zucchini. I thought the double height of railway sleepers would deter snails. Wrong! If you grow something interesting height is not an issue for them. The second raised bed can be found on the northern side of the greenhouse partly in front of the garden shed. As we never open the southern door it matters not that we can no longer open it, as follows;

The stakes have already been bracketed into the inside of the raised bed to accommodate the fact that this is now filled with six (6) different types of tomatoes and they are fairly aggressive growers. The next raised bed is on the northern side of the garden shed with a built in trellace. We believe this was formally used as some form of growing medium but the railway sleepers had deteriorated and some needed replacing, as follows;

We found the soil in reasonably good condition and it only needed a little good quality compost to bring the best out of it. At present it is growing three (3) different types of cucumber, three (3) different types of lettuce and two (2) different types of corn, all in excellent condition.

The last raised growing beds are the three (3) large ones on the northern boundary of the backyard. The preparation needed for this area was extensive but the final outcome has been pleasing, as follows;

All three (3) growing beds attract sunlight for between seven (7) and eight (8) hours per day and as a result are producing plenty of potatoes, leek, carrots, celery and a potentially large crop of cherry tomatoes.

Unfortunately I cannot produce a single photo that embraces all areas of our backyard. The best one is that which is featured on this blog's head page. Hopefully this design has given you an idea or two. This has taken almost two years to design and create, and during that period the author of this blog has had three mild heart attacks and two minor heart operations. Now it has become a labour of love and good post-operative therapy.

The next step is to look at the construction of each of the "zones", the how, what and why and what we are producing in each, commencing with the greenhouse.