Gardening in the city--thoughts from a former plant biologist

When the quarantine started I realized that our home was going to become our oasis. The kitchen was our favorite restaurant, Netflix was our favorite movie theater, and our yard was our favorite park. We live in a city which means our yard is about the size of a postage stamp. We are sandwiched in between two other houses by a tall white picket fence. It's actually pretty awesome. 

One of my favorite movies growing up was The Secret Garden. I would watch it over and over again and imagine exploring the winding tree lined trails. Maybe it was because of this movie I decided to go into studying plants when I went to college. 

I went to a small liberal arts college in North Carolina and started doing research as soon as I could (if you read my intro post, yes I am a nerd and love it!). I joined a plant biology lab studying the growth of tomatoes and how their roots would develop in drought conditions. Very specific yes, but I can tell you quite a bit about tomatoes at his point! For four years I worked in the lab, the greenhouse, and the field tending our plants at different points of their lifecycle. It was amazing and how many people can put greenhouse maintenance and basic horticultural field maintenance on their resume! 

Despite how much I loved it I decided to transition fields into computer science for my PhD. I loved working with the plants, but the reality of the situation was the plants didn't really like working with me. I became pretty allergic to all the plants I studied and it made working increasingly unenjoyable. I couldn't work with them every day, but that didn't mean I still didn't enjoy the excitement of watching them grow. 

Annapolis was the first time that I had a yard to garden in. My crazy handy boyfriend built a raised vegetable bed for me and I was ready to fill it with any edible plants Home Depot had to offer (but honestly I just wanted to grow tomatoes!). The yard was a blank canvas which was pretty fun to work with, if not a bit daunting. 

Like I mentioned before, it was quite small and so we hoped to maximize space by planting around the perimeter, but as with most home renovations, I've now learned, things didn't quite go exactly as planned. After digging down about 6 inches into the dirt we hit solid concrete. We later found out from our neighbors, who have lived here for much longer than us, that the back edge of this property used to be a used car lot that they later converted into a yard. Not necessarily something you think to check for before shopping for plants, but something that comes with living in the city I suppose. As you can probably see in the picture above, we had to place most of the shrubs and flowers about a foot out from the edge of the fence where the concrete had started to taper off. 

We found out the hard way that most of the soil in the yard was not suitable for growth compounding the pretty dense shade that shrouded the yard for a large portion of the day. I had put all my knowledge from college to use trying to adjust soil pH and provide supplemental plant food, but despite this the shrubs and a lot of the other plants didn't survive. The biggest success was the raised vegetable garden (we had filled it with organic vegetable topsoil mixture which I sure helped) and provided us with herbs though the summer and a even a few tomatoes! 

Entering this year we had a much better idea of what we were getting into and went in prepared. About 60% of the plants from last year had survived the winter, so we had to start by pulling all the plants that didn't make it. Since most of the difficulty had been near the edges of the yard, we decided to go with the raised bed approach. All the plants in the raised vegetable bed and pots had thrived the entire season so we decided to add more to that. Enter handy boyfriend again. He made a few trips to Home Depot and got stone, cinderblocks, and plenty of good topsoil to support the plants. 

It ended up looking great and so far, its been thriving! So much better than the plants had done last year, which made us very happy. We also added 3 more pots for flowers and a couple hanging baskets which brought some fun dimension to the small space. Learning from last year anything new we did put into the soil we mixed with good bagged topsoil to help sustain its growth. Mulch on the top also helps to control the moisture and keeps the plants hydrated. 

We had a surprising amount of the herbs and vegetables from last year survive the winter so we only really had to supplement the vegetable bed. We added in some lettuce, cilantro, basil, and of course, new tomatoes. They haven't produced any fruit yet, but I'm checking back every day to see how they are doing! 

Our small yard has become our oasis during this pandemic. We can't go out many places and most of the public parks are closed. I've found its really uplifting to spend some time outside and tending to plants is extremely satisfying. When things feel crazy or stressful watering the plants or pruning the vegetables is soothing, maybe its from years of doing it in school but I think it's really beneficial to anyone. We don't have much space in the city, but we take advantage of every square inch. It feels cozy, relaxing, and perfect. You don't need winding tree lined paths to have your secret garden, it can be right sandwiched between two other houses.

A lot of my friends who have studied phycology much more than I have have said that caring for something living is extremely beneficial to your mental health. I must say that I agree. If dogs, cats, or even fish are too much to start with, maybe try a plant. They can be delivered to your house so you don't even have to leave and break your quarantine. Try it out, let me know how it goes.