I love to cultivate and grow fresh herbs and veggies, but I am challenged by lack of space. We live on a 40×120 lot in the middle of the city, and we have 8 lively children that play ruggedly outdoors all summer long. We long to move out to a more rural area, with a few acres where we can run, play, and grow whatever we wish. As we work toward that goal, ccontainer gardening has become our answer to sharing the precious out of doors space we have here.
This is the view of our back patio. We keep two big umbrellas open during the sunny summer days. We have no trees to speak of and this offers us some shade in our otherwise full sun west facing back yard.
On the patio we have boxes containing herbs like oregano, lavender, thyme, lemon balm, rosemary, chives, and yarrow. We also planted a few pansies in between for color. The pot with the pole in it is full of chocolate mint. It doubles as a base for one of the umbrellas.
A nice big pot of basil: 
I have two potted jalapeno plants to add some zing to our fresh salsa! The pot in the back ground (behind St. Anthony) contains sage, perfect for homemade chicken stock.
This is our St. Anthony grotto. It is in dire need of clean up and paint. I just may put a child or two on that task this afternoon! Behind St. Anthony are Red Raspberry bushes, growing on both sides of the fence.
These pots contain 3 varieties of tomatoes, cherry, roma, and beefsteak. Henry eats cherry tomatoes like candy, so I don’t expect many of those to make it inside! 
My clothes line goes between the two columns.
This south facing bed contains various summer blooming flowers and bulbs. We share the fence with our neighbors. We have desperately been trying to grow grass back here for years. We recently broke our ‘no chemical fertilizer’ rule, and are hoping for the best.
We try to keep it a fun place for the children to play, we have a slide for the littles, basketball for the bigger kids, scooters, rollerblades, and skate boards zip up and down the driveway constantly. And of course they also love to just sit back here and tell stories in the sunshine!
We are trying to make the most of our space, comfortable to our whole family, yet hopefully enticing to potential buyers. One day we hope to have that 5 acres to run and roam, for now though, we will try to bloom where we are planted!
Filed under: Garden, Large Family Life, around the house, frugal homemaking, growing children, homemaking, large family living, reality
You have a lovely home, Lisa. I love your St. Anthony grotto. I really like your potted herbs. Basil is the best!!!!!
I love it, Lisa. And you’ve given me some great ideas. The girls and I want to start an herb garden…something small and containable.
We don’t dare start until I have all my herbs in a row, so to speak.
You’ve provided much inspiration.
Lisa,
What a wonderful job you have done. I love the way you have used what you have to truly make your house (yard) a home so to speak. A place that is liveable, useable and also lovely, and where everyone is happy.
I really enjoyed seeing how your yard is setup! I have my herbs growing in small pots in my kitchen windowsill as we are currently renting and have a super small backyard. We have 6 small children and it’s still amazing to me that they can spend hours outside playing even in our small space.
We look forward to purchasing a home with a large yard for our little ones to run and play but for now we are content and making the best of our current situation knowing we are truly blessed with the space we do have! Thank you for sharing!
Very inspiring post! Chocolate mint…are you kidding?!
No, really, it’s chocolate mint. I found it at the farmers market last year. It tastes like a peppermint patty!
It’s really good floating in a hot mug of creamy coffee.
Gotta look for that!!! Can’t wait to try it!!!
Lisa, I just loved seeing your lovely yard. You reminded me of what we attempted to do with our yard when we lived in an old house in Hampton, VA. I have a LONG way to go in our new yard but I think I might just get some more herbs going for now.