Tiny Backyard Garden – Welgevonden, Stellenbosch

In March of 2013 my sister asked me to help her design her tiny backyard in order to grow some of her favourite fresh goodies. This is what ensued one Saturday soon after she had asked:

After lifting some of the gravel and plastic sheeting we made a few complex calculations to work out exactly how much soil we would need to fill the raised bed we were building. We set off and were lucky to find some really fantastic soil at one of the biggest earthworm farm in SA just outside of Stellenbosch.

All materials used to build the raised bed were recycled.

With the bed and other containers mulched with a healthy layer of straw we were ready to start planting.

My sister lives in a huge complex on the outskirts of Stellenbosch. This is the ideal place for people to start growing food in small spaces. Hopefully her pretty little garden will become so irresistible that many of her neighbours follow suit.

She had tried before to garden in pots but it was just never quite enough. This is what we started with at 7a.m. on Saturday morning.

It was a hot day but the plants were waiting to get into that lovely soil we had procured for it.

Before accusing us of cheating please take note that we only took this last picture the following because the setting sun the previous afternoon spoiled our ‘after’ photos. We finished on Saturday afternoon with enough time left to manufacture and install a small worm farm ensuring continual fertility for this little system.

Thanks sis for inviting me to come and play in your backyard! Watch this space for updates – especially the expansion into the vertical space…