I love making small spaces feel cozy and smart! Our patio is no exception. It’s not just small. It’s TINY. So it was a thorough challenge to make it my garden, a storage space, a relaxing area, AND a grilling station. But here’s how we did it!
Loveseat on the left, with my larger plants (dwarf fruit trees, pepper plant) next to it; grill front and center; and two different sized storage sheds against the wall to the right (Suncast brand). In between them I sandwiched a stacked plastic bin for various small gardening and BBQ tools. The full sized Suncast shelf serves as full-capacity storage for camping gear, emergency supplies, seasonal stuff, halloween costumes, biking paraphernalia; the halfsize Suncast shelf holds gardening and BBQ supplies.
Why not two full-size shelves? Because the half-size shelf also doubles as a tabletop for smaller garden plants AND for a table when grilling on the BBQ! The key to successful BBQing is a lot of flat tabletop space – there more you have, the better.
If you have a dusty patio like ours, you don’t need to spring for expensive custom covers for your BBQs and loveseats – I’m using a $5 plastic tablecloth from Target to cover my loveseat, and I use a $12 Bed Bath and Beyond clear vinyl tablecloth for a BBQ cover.
We picked up the BBQ grill and a cheap outdoor loveseat at a local hardware store during a sale. The loveseat originally came with a small coffee table, but in the end it just got too crowded with both loveseat and table out, so we shoved the coffee table into our storage unit for some future date when we have a bigger patio. It’s very important to admit defeat when appropriate, instead of cluttering your precious space with too much stuff! It’s nice to live in a small cozy space, but not nice to live in a rat burrow!
State of the Garden
My pepper plant is two years old and still turning out strong! Its harvest of peppers this year will not be as plentiful as year one, but boy are they FAT peppers!! They’re also fun to dry after they’re picked and they last a long time!
Also seeing the first real lime, it’s still small but growing rapidly. From 2 y.o. dwarf lime tree. Last year we got an impressive 1 lime from this tree. Hopefully seeing 2-3 this time. I think I need to look into different plant foods…
The other plants – a healthy (but a little wild) rosemary, two unidentified gift plants, and a bamboo that literally grew from nothing – my mom hacked off a piece of her bamboo for me to transplant; it died, and I threw it out, and then suddenly a shoot started growing from the pot a week later. It seems capped at about a foot tall, but it’s healthy, so we’ll see where it goes.
Not pictured are my Pachira aquatica (money tree) and Devil’s Ivy that grow indoors. They are also fat and happy, though I don’t like how my money tree is sprouting new leaves from the middle of the trunk. It does put out leaves towards the top like its supposed to, but the lower leaves dry out/die/fall off all the time, so the size of the foliage remains the same (and just grows higher) :(
The ivy is situated on the shelf above the couch, to hide the various cables/wires that run from our projector down to our various videogame consoles. It’s a great idea both for hiding wires, and for putting plants out of our cats’ reach, lest they eat it :P
Note: I am not a gardener. I do not have a green thumb, unlike some good friends I have who produce mutant veggies and insanely beautiful flowers. Everything you see here is experimental, and I lack anything beyond the common sense of watering schedules and dumping in Miracle-Gro. So if anyone has any tips on making plants thrive, I’m all ears!
