We purchased our home in April 2020. In our backyard, we had a large empty space that was just red mulch and was useless to us in its current state. I talked with the hubby about building a home garden with the area. Since it was in our backyard we wanted to make the area both functional and pretty. I knew I wanted this to be the start of my urban homestead. So I started planning the start of my little homestead…
Planning my Urban Homestead
Starting a new garden at this size was a little intimidating. I have gardened on a very small scale for years but wanting to expand to an urban homestead was a big jump for me. So I started doing some research. One great resource that helped guide me was Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett Markham.
Next I started googling garden ideas and layouts to see what appealed to me. I really liked the gardens with paver stones and rocks for the walkways with raised beds. I wanted to use raised beds since it helps with crop rotation and also provided a more cleaner and organized look. Now that I had some ideas I started looking for materials.
Choosing Raised Beds
First up, I started looking for raised bed options. I had a small garden with one raised bed before. That raised bed was made of wood and had deteriorated in only a few years. I knew I wanted to try something different.
There are a number of options when it comes to raised beds. You can buy corners that let you slide in wood of any length to make your own custom raised beds. There are also many kits you can get. I chose to go with metal raised bed to help prevent them from deterring and also because I found them in a beautiful blue color. I thought the color would add a nice touch to the backyard. They came in two different sizes a 34″ by 34″ and a 68″ by 34″. Both are 12″ deep giving me plenty of room to plant in them.
Measure
Now that I picked out my beds I had to start measuring to figure out how many could fit in my space and build out a plan. Things to remember when choosing location for your beds. You do not want to have to step into your beds to work or harvest. Ensure you are leaving enough space on all sides to allow you to walk around and reach your harvest from all angles.
I decided to do a total of 8 larger beds (68″X34″). This allowed me to have about 14 inches of space between the beds and my fence or my house. I then left a middle walk way at 30 inches. I left the middle walk way larger to allow me to bring my wheelbarrow down the path and also more space to run the hose or future irrigation through. This large space was also important because there was some natural elevation change to pull water away from the foundation of my home and wanted to ensure that remained. Between the short ends of the beds I left the same space as i did on the right and left paths (14 inches).
I also chose two of the smaller raised beds to go in the main area most visible from the backyard. I wanted to use these as centerpieces with a small fruit tree and a passion fruit vine. Also allowed me to have space for planters and fabric bags planters. I made a ruff map of the area and where everything should go.
Pathways
I chose 12×12 paver stones to use as the main part of the walk way since they are very reasonably priced and saved me on buying as many landscaping rocks. I found rocks to use as a filler between the paver stones and the raised beds. In the main pathway I was able to leave enough room between the two paver stones to eventually add in hoses for irrigation.
Soil
The final item to plan was what I was going to fill the raised beds with. I did research of different options and decided to go with a combination of top soil, chicken manure and potting soil to be the initial filling of my raised beds. Your soil is one of your most important parts of your garden. It is what is supplying the nutrients to your plants and in turn to you. This was the base to fill my beds but I continue to improve and amend my soil as time goes by.
Shopping
Now that I had a plan the shopping began! I received my raised beds as Christmas presents. Then I started looking for the best way to get large numbers of pavers, rocks and soil to my house. There are places that you can have soil and compost delivered in bulk and they will place the piles on your driveway or in front of your house. Since I didn’t know how long this project would take for me to complete I didn’t want to chance having the bulk soil on my driveway. I found I could do pallet size orders from Home Depot where I could get the soil amendment in cubic foot bags. In total I ordered over 3 separate orders (needed more rocks then I had expected)
- 120 Paver Stones
- 98 bags of Top Soil
- 12 bags of Potting Soil
- 49 bags of Chicken Manure
- 70 .5 cu feet bags of landscape rocks
Some other items I purchased are weed fabric, chicken wire and a wheelbarrow to help haul all of the rocks and dirt to the garden.
The Heavy Lifting Transitioning the Empty Space
Once everything was delivered the real work began. The first task was to clear out all of the red mulch and weeds that were currently in the garden area. During the evenings I started building the raised beds in the garage.
Next step was to roll out the weed barrier and use stakes to tack it into place
Then I laid out the raised beds in their planned locations.
Next was placing and measuring all of the paver stones. This was one of the most time consuming tasks. Ensuring that they all were at the same distance and straight. As I started measuring I realized that the beds moved too easily and had to start filling them as I went to keep them from moving.
To fill the raised beds I first placed chicken wire along the bottom to prevent gophers from getting into my raised beds. We have a lot of them in our neighborhood and they had already made a hole in our fake grass. They I filled with the combination of top soil, potting mix and chicken manure. I also put down the first order of rock I had purchased to get an idea of how many bags I needed to order on my next delivery.
Once I got my other loads of rock I was able to finish up the installation. To lay the landscaping rocks I would dump a few bags out in an area and then use a garden rake to level them out. I used the height of the paver stones as a guide to be the fill point so the rocks were even with the pavers.
Flourishing Urban Homestead
Building the urban homestead was primarily done during the weekends. I started it January 1 2021 and I finished it February 27, 2021 and most of the work was done by myself or with some help from the hubby. I am writing this two years later and I am still happy with the decisions I made. I’ve made some improvements such as adding drip irrigation but I would not have changed any thing in the design and materials I chose. I love what this garden has become an empty space to flourishing urban homestead…How my Little Homestead Started.
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