FarmCity Food Garden Construction

A Present for Christmas

With our growing reputation as the local experts on custom planters and garden containers, FarmCity has recently added a woodworking shop to our set-up - allowing us greater precision and quality in creating some of the best garden woodwork in Vancouver!  And it permits us to work year-round on your projects.

One client bought herself a beautiful Christmas present, installed in early December:  a suite of balcony planters, for both her upper and lower balconies.  

First, on both balconies, we installed the decking, replacing the cold concrete blocks with a friendlier, less industrial wooden surface. 

Then on the lower balcony, we built planters around three sides, creating almost 60 square feet of growing space.  She also has still more growing space in the in-built cement planters on the other side of the balcony rail, which she can now access easily with the stairs in the middle of the picture.  

The tulip bulbs are already planted, waiting for spring - and she'll be entertaining guests in the midst of a lush, colourful display.

The panorama-style photo distorts things a bit, but hopefully gives a sense of the wrap-around greenery to come!

Since the balcony is off the kitchen, we also installed a self-contained balcony composter which both reduces waste and feeds the garden, all at once!  The composter's not visible here - but check out the link for a photo.

We went a little smaller on the upper balcony, a more private space off the main bedroom (below).  The smaller planters are all on wheels, so that the space can be as versatile as possible - allowing room for yoga, coffee in the morning sun, or just admiring the view out to the ocean.  Here, we also built a trellis for an evergreen clematis, to create a greater sense of privacy.

At two feet high, all of these planters would also be ideal for gardeners with bad backs, sore knees or any other physical limitations.  Just the right height for wheelchair gardeners!

Front Yard Garden - Update

We wrote a while ago about a beautiful front yard vegetable garden we built; here are new photos showing the garden about a month later - in very early May.  We've built some climbing frames for peas and beans, transplanted strawberries, garlic and rhubarb, and (with the owners) have helped plant bok choi, pak choi, turnips, carrots, beets, lettuce, potatoes, and some herbs.  The orange thyme between the flagstones is growing well, and will eventually form one continuous seam of aromatic beauty amongst the stones!

There's still room for the heat-loving plants to go in - tomatoes, squashes, peppers, more herbs, and so on.   And of course, the greens and peas can be resewn in successive "flights" - every three or four weeks - to keep a steady supply coming for much of the summer.  

In the fall, while the last tomatoes are still ripening on the vine, the garden can be converted into a winter garden - broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower and brussels sprouts interspersed with beds of kale, garlic, onions and so on.  We can also cover one or more of the beds, and grow lettuce for year-round harvesting!

Edible Green Walls

 Here's something new for FarmCity!  Edible, living walls!

One of our local credit unions invited us to make a proposal for a green wall, so of course, it had to be an edible one, if it was going to come from FarmCity!  It's an elegant, attractive solution for people with very small spaces on balconies or tiny townhouse yards - it takes up hardly any space, but provides lots of food.

We planted this one for a semi-shaded spot, with some edible flowers (pansy and marigold), herbs such as oregano, sage and peppermint, and a variety of lettuces and other greens.  The greens can be harvested, like the herbs, by picking individual leaves, while leaving the plants growing - and the flowers can be deadheaded, so they keep blooming, too.  That way, the wall looks attractive for a long time.

For a sunnier location, the plants could include strawberries, bush beans, small herbs, and bee-friendly flowering plants.  And for ourselves, we've long intended to make a mushroom-growing wall in the shade by a side fence: we've got oyster mushrooms growing in a cardboard box at the moment, and will put their spores on a medium of wood chips and chicken straw, in the edible wall.

Watering the wall is very easy: you pour water into reservoirs at the top (hidden behind the top piece of wood), from which the water is slowly wicked down to each succeeding row.  The plants are watered from the inside out, as it were, so that no soil erosion or movement can occur.  When installing such a wall, it is easy to ensure that the surface of the building or home on which it is installed is well protected from an water damage.

This particular green wall technology also makes replanting the wall each spring a very easy process: just grow or buy suitable bedding plants in small 2- or 3-inch pots, and plant them in the cells!

Entirely self-contained, it can be easily and quickly attached to any exterior wall.  Its modular character allows for just about any size and dimension of green wall to be made - though in the case of an edible wall, you probably want it to remain small enough to be easily harvested!

 

 

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Edible Landscape Design

We've recently begun to offer full foodscaping design services, especially for clients who want to replace their front lawn with an edible garden - and so need it to look particularly nice.  

This project was for a south-facing front lawn in the Dunbar area, the yard measuring about 33x33'.  The client wanted to replace her front lawn with a system of raised vegetable-growing beds and cedar chip paths.  In such a sunny location, just about any vegetable or fruit will grow well, and you can layer the kinds of plants from front to back (sunwards to shade-wards) in each successive bed.  So the full-sun tomatoes, beans, squashes, or herbs, provide part-shade for turnips or beets, and closer beneath the sun-loving plants, more consistent shade for lettuces, kales, mints, parsley or asian greens. 

The client also looked to create some kind of barrier around the yard to prevent dogs (and maybe overly-eager human scavengers!) from coming in - while not making it unfriendly for the neighbours.  And finally, she wanted  to replace her straight-shot, broken concrete walk with a winding walk of pavers.

In designing the yard, our first decision was that the garden needed a focal point - both visually from the street, and practically in terms of a staging-place for the gardening work.  So we started with the paved patio area up near the house - where a potting table, garden bench or small table and chairs could sit - and worked from there.   

Likewise, we saw our goal as trying to provide as much food-producing space as possible.  So on the front and one side, a fence became either growing frames or an arbour incorporating another growing frame - for grapes, beans, peas, tomatoes, squashes, even melons, kiwi vines or espaliered fruit trees.  Similarly, we replaced a proposed wooden fence on the other side with an edible, living fence of raspberries and blueberries.  

This is the most basic plan we devised, our client not wanting to get too adventurous with odd shapes and sizes of beds (though within the limits of what can be effectively gardened, the sky's the limit in this regard!).  We also agreed that an overall east-west layout for the beds was aesthetically the best choice for this yard. 

Included in the estimate was the installation of a well-designed, inconspicuous drip watering system, all running back to a single tap with a programmable timer to make it as little work as possible.

We should add: we have yet to get to design a garden for someone with particular physical needs - but it's a challenge we can't wait to take on!  Wheelchair friendly paths, extra high raised beds, friendly composting or watering systems, vertical gardening strategies, and so on: these can all be adapted for each person's particular needs.

Either way, the result: the transformation of an unused front lawn well past its prime, into a vibrant, rich, beautiful foodscape, producing healthy, fresh food year-round!  And no more mowing the lawn!

 

 

Rabbit Hutch

We've built chicken coops before, of course - but this was our first rabbit hutch!  Our client had three half-grown bunnies (litter trained) who currently resided in her living room - but in a busy household of children and working adults, this could only be a temporary arrangement.  So together, we planned a rabbit hutch for the front porch.  Well sheltered from the weather, the rabbits would have a safe place to live in the fresh air.  (The rabbit photo is by Robobobobo).

We took photos of the hutch while it was still in the woodshop:

The hutch fills a 4x7 foot space at the end of the porch, and and comes to 2 feet at its height.  There are doors over the run and the rabbit house alike, to make for easy cleaning.  We used spruce wood and dipped wire mesh, and prepped the hutch for our client to paint.  The photos were taken before we installed latches and handles on the doors.  When installed, it has its own plywood floor, to which the hutch is securely screwed.

We directed our client to a good source of hay, so the rabbits will be nice and cozy in their house, even on the coldest days!  

Beautiful Front Yard Garden

People's opinions about front yard vegetable gardens are often quite negative - but here's a recent project of ours that shows just how beautiful it can be:

We removed all the sod, then built the four raised beds using spruce wood and organic soil.   The result is about 150 square feet of rich, new growing space!  Between the beds, we put in pea gravel paths.  The gravel packs down into a firm layer on which to walk and work.   Finally, we installed a flagstone patio and path, from which to stage the gardening work.  Between the flagstones, we'll plant wooly thyme, while of course within the raised beds - fresh vegetables galore!

Our clients have asked us to help plan and plant the vegetables, which we're delighted to do: how nice to get to help the garden itself really take shape!

Finally, the next stage of our work with them will involve renovating the back yard, helping to redesign and refurbish the existing garden beds, and possibly building a trellis for a grape vine (or maybe wisteria!)

Below, a couple more photos of the project so far.  Also, check out our front yard garden update - the garden 5 or 6 weeks later!

Some of Our Recent Work

We've recently built a great little balcony package: a very simple potting table, a three-tiered planter, and a matching shelf on which to put more pots.  Made of finely sanded cedar, the table was finished with varnish to protect it from weathering (not yet done in this photo), while our clients decided to leave the planter and shelves to the elements: they'll weather to a lovely silvery grey.  We photographed the combination in our own yard, but it was custom built to fit a balcony approximately 5-1/2 x 13 feet, with room to spare for people and cats alike!

We also recently built a lovely kitchen garden over on West 15th Avenue.  The small yard of one half of a duplex, it had a perfectly nice lawn, but our clients, Will & Nina, didn't use it at all.  So instead, they put in a series of four raised beds - enough to grow a substantial part of their diet over the seasons!  And in order for our clients not to have to mow between the beds, we also installed river rock paths between.  Check out the link just above for a fuller description and more photos. 

Will & Nina are brand new gardeners, but just jumped right in - within a couple weeks of our building the garden beds, I got an email from Will: their spinach is coming up already, and there're other crops on the way!  

Welcome to FarmCity Food Garden Construction

Whether you have a large backyard or a small balcony, Vancouver-based FarmCity Food Gardens can help you get started growing your own organic fruits and veggies. We work with you to design, build and maintain your urban food garden. Get in touch to see how we can get you growing!