ABOUT ME
HI, MY NAME IS DAISY
I garden in my small, suburban home, backyard which includes an orchard of over 30 fruit trees and 11 raised beds for my vegetable garden. I’m in zone 9a near Houston, TX (South Texas). My gardening journey began in 2019, so if you are a beginner – then we have a lot in common. I am a first generation, self-taught gardener.
Home Backyard Food Garden
I started gardening because I came across the book ‘Life-Changing Foods‘, where Anthony William describes the connection and nutritional value one single plant can provide us by simply growing it ourselves. Since I’ve always been interested in improving my health, growing my own food was definitely the next step – it just made sense! So, the idea of starting a home backyard food garden was born. Gardening has been one the greatest things I’ve done. And to think that I wanted nothing to do with plants before.
I also work full time and have an amazing family of 5, that includes my husband David and my daughters; Novalie, Leilah, and Alery.
I’ve actually created my own little daily paradise – and YOU can too!
“Daisy, your spirit is so beautiful”, by Calvin White
GROWING YOUR HEALTH
I have found that helping others grow their own food has helped me discover my true passion. I know your health is important to you. And I believe the best way to start improving your health is by growing your own food. So why not start now and create your own home backyard food garden?
Gardening is a new experience for me and if it’s the same for you, maybe we can connect and go through this journey together. I hope you find that I can help you and we can build a friendship.
Wether you are just starting or you have been gardening for years, my wish is that we can share our experiences, wins, fails, and laughs together.
HOW RYAHLIE WAS BORN
The Ryahlie Garden started with an Orchard dream. I’ve always been attracted to fruit trees. I thought I needed a lot of land to have them. However, when I attended a ‘Fruit Culture Day’ class (Jan 2019) at my local garden center, I learned different. In this class, I learned the High-Density Method of planting; clusters of trees pruned to a manageable height. This method allowed me to plant fruit trees in my backyard. Then, I got a little carried away and now I have over 30 fruit trees…LOL.
Backyard Improvements
As I’m staking out the location of the trees, I realized my backyard needed an improvement. We had irrigation issues so mud was very common. Therefore, we replaced the sod with concrete, added an outdoor kitchen, and went a step further and added a fire pit. Ultimately, this became one of our greatest home improvement projects
*Check out the Remodel Tour here.
I read “Life-Changing Foods” by Anthony William and realized I needed to grow vegetables. The next step was figuring out where to place pots. The only space available was the left side of the backyard. I was never into ‘gardening’ so I decided to start with smart pots. These gave me the opportunity to invest little money in something I wasn’t too sure of. I quickly fell in-love with gardening. As a result, I kept adding more and more pots.
My vision
Jan 2020, my vision for my vegetable garden grew. Casey Lynn Lawrence from ‘The Lawrence Garden Farm‘, inspired me to add raised beds. Therefore, I decided to add 11 raised beds that run as an alley, or Secret Garden, to the side of my house (the space that most really don’t use). We hired a contractor to remove the sod, add River Rock gravel, flagstone as stepping stones, and fill the beds with top soil/compost mix. The hardest part was definitely building the raised beds, which my family helped build.
*Check out my progress videos here: Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, and Stage 4.
Naming the Garden
The final touch was naming the Garden. I like meaningful names. I started brainstorming with what the space meant to me. I asked myself questions like; why was I growing a garden?, why did I grow to love it so much?, what does it represent? – So, I came up with RYAHLIE.
Ryahlie is part of my daughters’ name put together. To be exact, the last couple of letters of their names starting with the youngest: Alery, Leilah, and Novalie. Can you see it. now? I wanted to grow our food so my family had the opportunity to nourish their bodies with the best foods. Ryahlie is not a person; its family, love, purpose, dedication, education, growth, sacrifice, and more. Gardening is similar to parenting. When I plant a seed, I see all the possibilities – same with children. Our plants become our babies – we care, nourish, and protect them. We watch them grow and as they mature, they provide something great for this world. Ryahlie represents all that to me.
