Deep Eddy Organic Garden

Bohemian Bounty recently completed a new raised-bed, organic garden in the Deep Eddy neighborhood. If you are not familiar with Deep Eddy it’s west of Mopac and its namesake is Austin’s other amazing spring-fed swimming pool – Deep Eddy. In reality, Austin has a number of cool spring-fed swimming holes, some official some not, but all amazing in the hot summer. The other thing Austin has many of is hills – steep hills. Deep Eddy is no exception.

The yard in question is so steep from the front to back a raised-bed or container garden is almost required. As the family is new to gardening we started small with a raised-bed made of beautiful 2×12 cedar. The garden makes use of a portion of the yard that went unloved due to its small size and isolation of the rest of the backyard. As it is fenced on both side the planting scheme featured a number of climbing vegetables to take advantage of vertical space. We also incorporated a number of Middle Eastern vegetable varieties the family used often in their cooking including a small, tender okra Jen tracked down called “Star of David” and a cucumber called Persian.

The home owner is a new fan of Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and wanted to try a number of his techniques. Bohemian Bounty mixed up a big batch of Mel’s Mix soil for one bed and filled the remain beds with a great soil mix from Garden-Ville. We’re excited to see if there will be any noticeable difference between the plants in each section as the garden matures. It’s a great experiment we are happy to be a part of.

Challenges on this garden installation included working around an existing in-ground irrigation system which was replaced with an above-ground drip system for the garden, working with shade from a ligustrium tree, and creating an attractive gardening space which enhances the yard and works well with the fencing already in place.

On the planting day the entire family got in to the act with all the children and both parents planting vegetables, herbs, flowers and seeds. The finished garden looks fabulous. The only down-side so far is the neighbor’s cat thinking Mel’s Mix makes for an awesome litter box. We’re working on that little problem…