Experiments Aplenty Fill Vancouver Edible Garden

Experiments Aplenty Fill Vancouver Edible Garden

Experiments Aplenty Fill Vancouver Edible Garden

Everything from cinnamon basil to California lilac grows in Caitlin and Owen Black’s Garden in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant Area. The co-owners of Aloe Designs utilize this space as a test backyard for their company, and they like to experiment with exotic flowers and each kind of edible imaginable before utilizing the plants using a customer.

Once the couple bought their home, the garden was a dilapidated concrete pad with overgrown weeds, and it quickly became the Blacks’ priority to fix the space. “I think we’d vegetable beds and a new patio constructed before we had any artwork a couch in our living space,” Caitlin says. Six years and a major renovation afterwards, the set feels like their space is finally complete.

Aloe Designs

The edible beds are Caitlin and Owen’s favorite area of the backyard. Herethey could reap the benefits of the hard work year-round and enjoy a constant supply of fresh produce. Right now, the elevated beds are full of eggplant, peppers, berries, corn, beans, zucchini, beets, edible flowers and much more. Caitlin devotes one 5-by-5 bed . “My favorite to grow is arugula,” she states. “I could eat that each and every day!”

Aloe Designs

Most of the 15-by-40 space is dedicated to test planting to their company, Aloe Designs. The pair especially likes to examine different organic growing methods for edibles and try out exotic and sun-loving plants to find out whether they could make it through a year in rainy Vancouver.

Aloe Designs

Owen uses this space to try out woodworking and concrete projects before taking them to a client’s home. The backyard shed was his creation. They had some space to store gardening supplies and their mower, and wanted someplace to have rain barrels too. This space in the back of the garden was a bizarre form and too damp to develop anything in, so Owen utilized it as a place to experiment with building methods.

Aloe Designs

Owen constructed the shed with a little deck. The whole drop is made of reclaimed materials — mostly salvaged from customer projects. A classic sink ties to the rain barrels, along with a barbecue pit embedded in the gravel helps to make the most of summer nights.

Aloe Designs

Medicinal and edible herbs develop at a raised bed and pots along the back fence. “We develop literally each principal kind of herb that you could title and then some wacky ones,” says Caitlin. Mint and peppermint are accompanied by pineapple sage, stevia and spicy oregano.

Aloe Designs

The few built an outdoor dining table with a planter box for a trade show a few years back. It was the very first piece of furniture that they ever designed or constructed, and they love it. The planter box could be removed easily and invisibly with different plants or dinner necessities. “We pot this up with ginger to utilize for dinner parties in your pasta, or we could fill it with ice to throw a bottle of wine inside,” says Caitlin. “We call it our crop table”

Aloe Designs

A number of low-maintenance and drought-tolerant plants develop near the back fence. The backyard includes four trees — olive, magnolia grandiflora, Himalayan birch and a stewartia. Caitlin and Owen have fleshed out any empty space with perennials such as ferns, California lilac, peony and phorium.

More:
Guides to edible gardening

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