The Garden on Clisby
Words by Caleb Grimes | Photos by Andy Carter
The alarm clock on my phone jars me from sleep. It’s 5:15 am, and I’m annoyed. I roll over in bed, my hand fumbling to remove my phone from its wall mount next to the bed and shut it off before another jarring alarm blast. Breakfast, waking up the kids, getting dressed for school and work, and then I start my day. I’m still annoyed by the sound of the alarm as I begin making breakfast. I rotate the dial on my stove to medium heat and watch as the burner slowly glows red. The cast-iron skillet is resting on a powder-coated black metal multitiered countertop rack next to me, and I reach for it. Why are the sounds of alarm clocks so unbelievably irritating? I guess the more irritating the sound, the more likely I am to wake up. I answer my own question with a confident statement that seems to make sense. 5:30 am is such an inconvenient time to wake the kids up for breakfast. Yes, because everyone works from 9 to 5, and that works for parents’ schedules, I guess. Again, I respond to myself without any internet search engine, just reasoning, albeit reasoning without evidence, with a response that seems plausible, and I move on. Why am I using a cast-iron skillet to scramble eggs? Why not some other kitchen appliance? My kiddos ate their breakfast, they’re now dressed, and we’re heading out the door for school. As I pull out of my driveway, a new question enters my mind.
Why do I have a lawn?
And for that question, I couldn’t settle on an answer; plausible answers and possible answers, yes, but not a reasonable answer that made sense to me. Sure, lawns look nice, maybe, or maybe they don’t look nice; maybe I’m so used to seeing everyone with a lawn that I’ve accepted the unspoken collective agreement of manicured square patches of grass in the front and back of our working and living spaces. Why do they look nice? Do they really look nice? There is a lot of maintenance required to keep a lawn looking "nice."
What does a lawn do, really? Why do I have a lawn?
Recently, a friend stopped by my home to photograph my garden. It was a chilly Monday morning, 8:30 a.m. in mid-April. We chatted for a bit as he explained a little about the different camera lenses he carried in a black, hard-shell camera case. Andy, a dear friend and phenomenal photographer, walked the length of each garden row, towering over the flowering new growth of an assortment of vegetable buds and flowers that had emerged from the previous evening’s rainstorm. We struck up a conversation about the angles he was framing the pictures and what kind of edits, if any, he may have to do. After some time, he asked me about the process of turning a backyard into a garden and was curious about how I began this journey. The photo session and conversations ended with an assignment. Write a piece about my backyard with the intention of inspiring others to maybe do the same.
When I started this project in November of 2021, I knew that in order to have a successful garden, I was going to have to position myself in a way that there would be appropriate rewards to work ratios. Years ago, I bought plants from Lowe’s or Home Depot, stuck them in the ground, and watered them occasionally with a water hose. I got handfuls of peppers and a grocery bag or two of cucumbers, but not anything substantial or really inspiring.
In 2020, I found myself working from home and having a lot of free time during the day as I worked at night. This newfound freedom led to a lot of hikes in the woods, solitude, and most importantly, curiosity. I would walk through forests and wonder if I could eat the abundance of colorful vegetation. Brightly colored berries populated wild bushes and shrubs, mushrooms clustered together sprouted from logs like shrunken city skyscrapers, and vines heavy laden with fruit having the appearance of grapes overtook trees, and I couldn’t help but wonder if these forests were just grocery stores that we’d long forgotten.
I downloaded an app on my phone to identify the plants that would catch my eye, and over the course of a year, I became proficient in identifying the commonly edible abundance of the woods. I would cross-reference the pictures of plants with their scientific names using the app, internet searches, and Wikipedia, all with the same question. Is this plant edible, and if yes, what part? My excitement continued to grow as I would post my findings on social media and read through the responses I would receive about the said plant. People were curious too. I was making jellies from the berries I was finding, liquid soaps from the leaves of ivy, sautéed, fried, or even dehydrated mushrooms, and tinctures from the herbs. The overwhelming response from others and myself was intrigue and excitement.
What started with Can I eat that? has now become a much larger question. Instead of finding things to eat in the forests, could I personally grow things? My thinking changed directions creatively, and I now wanted to create and implement the environments that I was seeing in the woods. I needed water, soil, and a space to grow things, so I decided to try the backyard garden thing again, but this time I had seen what nature could do without the help of humans. I saw how plants grow without pesticides, water hoses, or big box store fertilizers, and I saw how they did it all and thrived.
I needed a plan, but it needed to be a different approach than before. I wanted to see if I could harness nature using similar systems that I had witnessed working in the woods. For my garden to grow, it needed water. I didn’t want to use city water. Plants don’t use city water in the woods; they use rainwater. It’s free, and the plants seem to do just fine using it. I began searching online for ways to collect rainwater. I saw one ingenious idea after another, everything from digging ponds to collecting rainwater from the roof gutters in barrels. My home doesn’t have roof gutters, but rain still runs off the roof. My city had recently changed sanitation companies and was removing the current garbage bins in preparation for new bins being distributed. I asked to keep some of the bins from my neighbors and ended up with six big green trash bins. I lined the bins up, side by side, in a row along the drip line of the roof. Next, I purchased spigots I found on Amazon and installed them in the trash bins, which are now acting as rain barrels. Putting this kind of creative thought and energy into a project created an atmosphere of success, and I wanted to continue to ride that wave. My water question had been answered. I was going to collect rainwater and use it instead of city water to water my future garden.
The next step was making my yard seem like the floor of a forest, covered in leaves, rich earth, and lots of little critters. I plotted out a rectangle in my yard and covered it with the leaves from an oak tree next to my home. The leaves simultaneously covered the grass and weeds, creating greater moisture retention in that area, and it seemed logical that the leaves would break down, giving nutrients to the soil. Over the next several months, the leaves began to break down, smothering the grass and weeds in the area and giving me an optimal environment for planting.
After months of waiting for the "grass to die" under the blanket of leaves, it was finally time to start planting. I chose the plants I wanted to grow simply by writing down what vegetables I would typically buy from the grocery store. Tomatoes, spinach, onions, garlic, corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, beets, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, strawberries, blackberries, eggplant, okra, brussels sprouts, zucchini, collard greens, and potatoes. A friend, inspired by my odd but successful rain barrel project, gave me a survival book he had acquired. The book had a section on small-space gardens, including how and what to plant. I followed the diagram laid out, trusting blindly that the author knew more than I did. Following the recommendations on where to place each plant, my garden thrived. To offer some context, I had approximately 4 cucumber plants, 6 tomato plants, 2 squash plants, 1 bush bean plant, 10 potato plants, and so on. It wasn’t an industrial-scale operation; it was roughly 25 feet by 15 feet. I ordered irrigation tubing from a company online to transport the collected rainwater, creating gravity-fed drip irrigation lines that would run throughout each garden row. When rainwater would run out, I would fill the bins with city water and wait a few days before using it, assuming chlorine would be less potent or even possibly evaporate before using it.
Next came pest control. Insects were kept at bay with the use of diatomaceous earth, a powdered fossilized plankton, spread around each plant. The powder is organic, all natural, and easily found in a garden or hardware store. For the remainder of the pests, I did my best to remove them by hand each evening—a few grasshoppers here, a few caterpillars there. However, I was amazed to learn how each insect served a purpose for biodiversity within the context of my garden. Wasps, which were previously viewed as something to exterminate, became the unsung heroes of my garden, decimating the cabbage worms on the underside of leaves. I observed them capturing caterpillars from the leaves of cabbage and broccoli plants and flying off with them, presumably to eat. Ladybugs were silent assassins, stealthily devouring and taming a growing aphid population.
My garden, my first real and meaningful attempt, had slowly become a success, producing an abundance of vegetables and fruits throughout that growing season. What started with the question about lawns, followed by a jarring change in my work life, led to hiking and observing nature in a way that I had forgotten. My new experiences and curiosity piqued, leading to more questions and finally action. I’ve learned what I needed along the way by asking questions and following advice. I don’t have all the answers on how to successfully create a biodiverse and thriving garden; I’m new at this and still learning. But what I have learned is that encouragement from friends, strangers on social media, and a childlike curiosity go a long way. Be curious. Remember what it was like to be a kid and see the wonder in the things around you. Take the time to observe plants growing and see how they exist and thrive in your local spaces and forests. Nature does just fine without you, so take the time to enjoy and observe it. Look for ways to get excited about starting and maintaining a project. Stop telling yourself you don’t have a green thumb, believe in yourself, and embrace the journey.
Rekindling Our Partnership with Nature: A Path to Harmony and Sustainability
In an age of towering skyscrapers and sprawling urban landscapes, it's hard not to feel disconnected from the natural world. While nature effortlessly integrates itself into its surroundings, our human constructs often appear at odds with the hills and valleys, forcing out native wildlife and vegetation. The way we build our cities, homes, and even our various modes of transportation seems to push against the very essence of the environment. It begs the question: Is there a better way to coexist with nature?
Our modern lives are filled with anomalies. We level the land to erect uniform, rectangular dwellings and replace native plants with foreign flora. We commute in vehicles to buy fruits and vegetables shipped from across the globe. By doing so, we disrupt the delicate balance of local ecosystems. But what if we paused and asked ourselves, "Why?" Why do we maintain these practices that seem so disconnected from the world around us?
The first step toward change begins with a single question and, with it, the potential to create a ripple effect. Imagine reclaiming our outdoor spaces—our lawns, porches, decks, and driveways—and using them for a greater purpose. What if we transformed these areas into thriving gardens filled with native plants and edible produce?
As we adopt small, meaningful changes, we open ourselves to a partnership with nature. This alliance holds the key to a more harmonious and sustainable existence. By embracing nature's wisdom, we have the potential to create a world that works in tandem with its surroundings rather than against them. So, let's start asking "why" and take the first steps toward a future in harmony with the natural world.