Neighborspace Garden — 1 year later

The raspberries and potatoes

The little 5′ x 25′ garden between our house and our next door neighbor’s house has been a very successful experiment. We divided the garden in the middle across the short dimension so that we have the east end and our neighbor has the west end.  Although we planted a some potatoes and a few other items in our half last fall, we opted for more berries and installed six each of two varieties.  We also got more potatoes popping up, as well as a volunteer squash that has put on lots of foliage but no fruit.  Our neighbor opted for tomatoes, green beans, salad greens and an artichoke, but after her son saw how well our berries are doing, she may put in more berries this winter.

Garden looking west

Our neighbors have slowly removed their front lawns over the past fifteen years. Since we’ve lived there, five nearby lawns have been converted to either gardens or water-wise landscaping. Ours came out four years ago and while we’re still trying to get rid of the Bermuda grass, we’ve managed to establish four 4′ x 8′ raised beds and a long bed for raspberries. Now we just need to convince our next door neighbor to  convert her front lawn to garden — which would not only give her better sun for her veggies, but would remove the main source of pernicious Bermuda grass that keeps trying to re-establish itself in our main garden.