Today’s post is a virtual tour of my backyard, with the focus on the edible plants. Last fall we found some earth boxes for sale at the local home improvement store. Since I had just learned about the benefits of growing boxes like these, we bought all six they had. I tried growing some cool weather crops in a few boxes during our winter season with more or less success. The herbs box did really well, and the lettuce produced a lot too. But my backyard gets very little sunlight in the winter, so it took months for the tomatoes to ripen. I learned my lesson, and I know not to plant those for the wintertime. Peas, spinach, and lettuce will be good choices for that time.

As soon as spring came, I visited my favorite local nursery in Santa Ana and picked up some herbs and veggies to plant. It was at this nursery that I learned about a better kind of soil, which I have been mixing myself. After using this mix for over a half a year both for veggie boxes and flowering plants I can say, that the soil has been very successful.

But today I just wanted to show you (most of) my edibles growing in the backyard. I hope, that in a few weeks or months I can also show you the crops as well.

In the two boxes pictured above I am growing lettuce, peas and cucumbers.

This is my “youngest” box, I just planted the chives, dill and eggplants on the weekend.

This is my pepper box. I’ve experimented with growing peppers in the past but wit no success (in California). I found Hungarian peppers at the nursery, so I planted three and a Fresno Chili too.

This box houses a tomato plant and some lettuce.

This is the main herbs box. I grow parsley, coriander, fennel, Japanese chives, thyme and rosemary in it.

This is a young boysenberry plant, and to the right of it is one of my three fig plants.

This home made box I purchased from someone, and I planted two kinds of cherry tomatoes in it. Some of the other edibles I grow in the backyard that are not pictured: blueberries, strawberries, mint, basil, oranges, Meyer lemons and key limes. We also have two young avocado trees in large pots, and I’m trying to grow kiwis as well. My dragon fruit produced one fruit two years ago, but none of the 5 flowers took last summer. Of course I don’t expect everything to do well; this will be an experimental season for us.

Thank you for visiting my edible part of my backyard with me today. 🙂