Growing an Urban Garden with a Budget Greenhouse

Hello there, it’s me Kyla writing in the dead of winter about my pretty green and colorful garden. I am neeeeeding that life again back in my daily life. The walking through the garden, the dirt under my nails, my muddy berks, butterflies feeding from the wildflowers, and running away from the sprinkler but not getting away in time.

I thought I would share some 2021 photos from my urban side yard garden with my little 6x6 budget greenhouse that works as a storage shed for gardening accessories as well as a place to experiment with seeds and transplanting. In 2022, I will have a new garden bench that I am soooo excited to put together and put to use. My cousin actually had it shipped to us as a wedding gift, and I can not wait to get it dirty.

My vegetable portion of my garden consists of sweet peppers, arugula (which is one of my favorites), random pumpkins and gourds that always get randomly planted from the past years seeds, radishes (another favorite), onions, garlic (hoping to have better luck this year), kale (I had wayyyyy to much of it this past year), an assortment of squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.

NOW my fun and creative part of my garden consists of way too many flowers too name, but here are just a few. Zinnias, Dahlias, Cosmos, Moon plants (that took over and I am hoping to stop the spread), sunflowers, bachelor buttons, milkweed (for the butterflies) and so many more. The dahlias were my favorite flower this year in the flower garden, I had lots of different varieties, sizes, and colors, and they were gorgeous in my wedding bouquet.

I started my garden in 2020 with a 6x6 greenhouse and a 6x6 u shaped raised bed. Vegetables were what I planned to grow. Flowers were the last thing on my mind, besides a ton of sunflowers that shot up that first year next to my greenhouse (I am an over seeder, you will soon come to learn). A few weeks later, I realized that due to my over seeding, I may need some more places to plant my vegetable starts that were taking over. So Cory and I built a second raised bed, a few feet across by around 6 feet long. A few months later a third raised bed was built. THEN came the wildflowers.

My step dad brought his tiller over in 2020, and we dug up a small section of the yard for my wildflowers. I planted a couple of bags of mixed seeds, bachelor buttons, cosmos, and a couple other fillers. I planted them later in the summer and they were just blooming at the end of the season, but I fell in love. Now this brings us to 2021.

We had our wedding planned for October 2nd and I knew I wanted to plant and grow and arrange all of my wedding center pieces and bouquets. SO this meant that I needed more space to grow those beautiful flowers. I purchased an electric tiller, I actually have a video on youtube about unboxing and using that tiller. LINK HERE. The electric tiller is definitely not near as possible as a gas tiller, but it got the job done without having to borrow my step dads every time I decided to add more gardening beds. Cory loves his yard and loves taking care of it, and I just kept taking more and more yard to plant more and more flowers and he finally just got used to the idea ha.

My 2021 flower garden was an absolute beauty. I started cutting flowers and making arrangements. I sold them on my flower cart on the side of the road, for just a few dollars. I needed to keep them cut back into October so they would continue to grow. I would post on Facebook the days I was selling them and they would sell out within an hour. It was such a joy to see pictures of my flowers in people’s homes and given as gifts. It made me feel so honestly happy and warm.

I loveeeee creating and making art and by making these bouquets, it allows me to do that.

I can’t wait to share my 2022 flower and vegetable garden with you all. PLUS I get to introduce my little baby girl to the garden and teach her my gardening ways in the future. YAY