Home Gardener Takes a Stroll Down the Alley

This town is full of alleys.   Alleys are narrow lanes where people park their cars, put out full garbage cans and store junk.  Some places don’t have them, none up in most of Massachusetts but we got plenty of them here in the Lehigh Valley. Alleys are also places where interesting gardens take root.  Some show evidence of a serious vegetable gardening effort, raised beds with plant markers and full of burgeoning cabbages and leeks/garlic standing tall and slender. Some beds are a bit more slap dash, just a few tomatoes and a stake or two to support the vines, maybe a few heads of lettuce almost going to seed but yet I can see they are generlly weeded often.

Others are alley gardens full of flowers - from Carefree pink roses to gorgeous huge day lilies to bearded iris to larkspur and daisies.  There are some along the NE side of town where the larkspur bloom blue and purple and pink in the alley gardens and backyards of every house.  One lady told me she didn’t even need to plant them; they grew from seed the wind blew from the neighbor’s garden. Her neighbor has a raised bed with a number of sculptured shrubs, larkspur and many lovely snap dragons around the shrubs.  This bed is highly decorative and very different looking from most Hellertown flower gardens which tend to be rather restrained. 

Some alley gardens are just a tangle of squash or melon vines with a clump of rhurbarb near by and some peppers growing unsupported by cages or stakes while others have a layout which might have utilized a square and a tape measure for perfect spacing between the plants.  They all definitely hold a promise of ripe fruits and vegetables that will be crisp and flavorful because you picked them right before making supper.

A few alley gardens in our town have well pruned fruit trees that display swelling buds of apples and pears with the hope of ripe fruit this fall. I guess they also hope the garbage man won’t take an apple for his snack as he tips the garbage cans into his truck’s maw!

I have seen narrow beds of lettuces and beets, of eggplants and peppers spaced in front of a tall wooden fence that obscures the rest of the yard. And of course, beds just of tomatoes.  Even a tiny bed along the alley can produce a lot of delicious things for the dinner table.   If you plan it well you can created raised beds that hold quite a lot; weed them standing in the alley so no space wasted on paths.  Asparagus, peas, broccoli and onions can all be seen here in town in tiny patches of well tilled earth that are clearly well cared for.

So, if you are not using the space along your alley for much of anything consider making a garden there.  Put veggies in there and some flowers.  Be creative, have fun with it.  It is not too late to make a sweet little garden in your alley area.

If you are not up for starting such a project, take a stroll and see the alley gardens of Hellertown….lovely even if there are no brightly blooming flowers in them, just cuke vines and tomaters ripening in the summer heat!