Raised Bed Garden

Final steps before filling your garden bed 

For this process,  you'll need a wheel barrow, a shovel, a garden fork, a rake, some brown paper bags and some chicken wire. Brown paper bags? Chicken wire? It might sound weird, but you will you will thank me later because these two "pest control screens," as I like to call it will save your vegetables from animals like moles or rabbits and your back from excess weeds.

Rabbits or Moles

 
If this is a problem where you live, you will want to lay a double layer of chicken wire across the bottom of your plot and fasten to the sides with a strap ant tacks. To make this more understandable, your plot is 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. You will want your wire to be 6 inches wider than your plot all of the way around. In effect, your chicken wire should be 7 feet long and 5 feet wide. This will allow for a 6 inch overlap on all sides. 

Once you have the chicken wire in place and folded up against the sides of your garden all of the way around? Use simple 18 inch long wood strips (or longer if available) and tack them into place around the sides to hold the chicken wire in place. You don't have to cover every inch of the chicken wire but you want it to hold the wire in place, as some enterprising mole will tunnel up near the sides to get it. If secured properly, your chicken wire will keep him out. Once you have your wire secured? You're ready to fill you raised bed

Brown Paper Bags

I use these under all of my garden beds, as well as in the beds around my yard as a natural weed deterrent and natural compost. Each year when I get ready to lay compost around my flower beds, I first clean the area and then lay down a layer of brown paper bags. If I don't have any, I use newspaper. The compost then goes on top and weeds are kept at bay for the rest of the season. It works equally well in the garden. Try it. I guarantee you will like the results. 

Filling Your Garden Bed

Use good quality top soil, some chicken or steer manure and organic compost mixing them all together as you add them into your box. Mixing in your wheel barrow is ultimately easier to ensure a good mix, before adding to your box. Repeat the process until your box is nearly full. 3-4" from the top should be sufficient. Once it is well mixed and spread evenly throughout your box, water it. After you have watered it, use your garden fork and turn the soil again, to mix the wet with the dry, ensuring even moisture throughout. Once this is done, rake the entire garden smooth and you are now ready to plant.

Next up: Planting your raised bed garden

Building Raised Garden Beds

Building raised garden beds

Raised bed gardening can be easy and fun. For example, if your soil is bad or poorly drained, raised bed gardening just might be for you. The raised garden bed or "Gardening in a box" as some call it is easy to build and takes about the same preparation as a regular garden. It will require copious amounts of dirt and compost (I would use organic) to fill your box and you need to buy some wood for the sides. Depending upon how tall you decide to make your raised beds, they may even be high enough to sit on, but we'll get to those specifics later. The best part of all, is that you can plant earlier and grow longer with a raised bed. It warms quicker but dries out quicker so you may want to consider a drip watering system and we'll talk about that later too.

The Layout

You first decide how big you want your garden to be. A Tip? Make whatever you build narrow enough to reach across to the middle, from either side. The length of your box doesn't matter but a good maximum would be 4-6 feet long. Once you've decided the size of your garden, rake the soil smooth and ensure that it is level, then you are ready to build. It's time to measure your garden for the lumber you will need. For simplicity here, I will give you the dimensions of my garden with respect to the amount and type of lumber I used.

My Plot was 4 feet wide and 6 feet long. I used 2" x 6" lumber for the sides, double stacked making my sides 12" high. I used 4" x 4" posts for my corners for support and strength. To round out my lumber and support requirements, I chose 2" x 2" stakes for my side braces for my 2" x 6" sides and ends. Armed with this information I descended upon my local lumber retailer and had them cut the following lumber for me. I chose Douglas Fir: 

( 4 )   2" x 6"ers cut to 6 feet long. (the sides)

( 4 )   2" x 6"ers cut to 4 feet long. (the ends )

( 4 )   4" x 4" posts cut in 2 foot long sections (corners)

( 4 )   2" x 2" stakes cut to 24" long with an angle cut on one end (for side bracing)

( 1 )   coated wood screws 4" long (Phillips head)

Building the sides

 
For this section, you are going to need an electric drill with a Phillips head screwdriver tip, a pair of gloves and safety glasses, a 'T' square and a level. Ready? Take the 4" x 4" corner posts and lay them at their respective corners. 

Next, take your 2" x 6" side lumber and mount it flush with the bottom of your post. use your 'T' square to ensure that it is indeed square. Once you have it screwed into place. repeat with the second 2" x 6." Continue to the opposite end and repeat for your second post. Once complete, turn the entire thing around so that your posts are on the outside and your 2" x 6" are facing inside towards your garden.

The end pieces are even easier to place, as you are going to place then now on the outside edge of your post. In other words, they overlap the side lumber Building this way, gives rigidity to the frame. Once you have used your 'T' square and level to ensure that your end pieces are squared up, screw the two 2" x 6" x 4' L pieces into place. Go to the other end of your end piece and repeat the process. Now, you should be able to stand up three sides of your garden. Finish aligning the remaining 2" x 6" side pieces and you now have a square, raised garden bed 12" high. You have four corner posts that have a remaining foot to them which can be utilized for a variety of reasons, raising the sides higher, hooking support rods into them to make a muslin cover from the sun for tomatoes, whatever. We'll cover that later. For now, we are just building our frame.

Now it's time for the stakes. Measure out to the middle of all four sides and mark that spot. Take each of your stakes and place the angle cut  (the sharpened end)  to the ground and using a small sledge hammer, drive these stakes down until they are even with the top of your sides and ends. One screw to each side board should be sufficient to hold each stake to the side. Just ensure that the screw does not protrude through both pieces of wood and out of the wood. Having fun yet? I hope so. Working with wood  is easier than most people think. In fact, there are many diy projects plans you can do quite easily.  For now, we have to finish this garden.

Next up: Filling our raised bed

Gardening Basics before Planting Vegetables

Good Morning,

Welcome to my first blog post. It is going to be a kind of  "all-inclusive" post on how to get ready for gardening. I plan on writing detailed information on each of these sections in the coming days so be sure to stop back by to check it out. But for now.... let's get your mind thinking about gardening.

Spring Vegetable Gardening

Along with all of my other pursuits in the spring, there is one that I love and enjoy above all else. It's a subject I have not covered much and that subject is vegetable gardening.

 

I grow a garden every year, planting anything and everything that I love to eat. I have been growing vegetable gardens since I was a kid. My folks had a large one and we used to pick and then take our vegetables to town to sell at the farmer's market. Always a source of income in our household.

I am now grown and long gone from the farm, but the lessons learned there are with me still.

How to pick a spot for your garden.

If you have never grown a garden before, you need to decide what you are going to plant and how many plants you will need to provide the amount of vegetable you plan to grow. Also, for a vegetable garden you are going to want an are that receives approximately 6 hours of sun daily and it must drain well. If the area does not drain, you may want to consider, building a drain system. Also, check with the nursery and gardening centers near you to see if they sell organically grown starts. If not, you may wish to buy your own seeds and start your own plants.In my gardening experience, start small and grow form there. Once you have that in hand, time to till.

Preparing the ground

The ritual begins with readying the plot. I used to use a great big old Troy tiller for years, but now days I have a small Manta Tiller. It is far lighter, just as easy to use and I am no longer growing a garden to feed a family of six. The smaller tiller matches the size of my garden. That's not to say I grow very little, because I still grow a lot of vegetables. the ground has been prepared for many years and requires very little effort to get it ready.

It's a simple test to see if the ground is dry enough to till, and that is by picking up a handful of dirt and crushing it in your hand. If it does not crush and only turns into a ball of mud? it's too wet to till. If on the other hand, it can sift through your fingers? It's dry enough to till.

Composting

I till and mix in my organic compost at the same time. My first till is down the long axis of my plot.  I let that sit for about two weeks and then add more compost and I re till the same area only crosswise. It probably isn't necessary to do this, but I learned it from my grandfather and use that technique still. I find it makes the soil very loamy and smooth to prepare it for planting. Plant roots grow best when there is air spaces between the dirt particles.

Choosing what to plant

Once your garden is tilled and composted, let it sit for a couple weeks before planting and then you are ready to plant your garden. At the home and garden center, check to make sure that the plants you buy are not already grown with fertilizers and chemicals, as you can transfer that to your garden by planting these. Besides, plants grown from seeds and with fertilizers and other chemicals tend to not do well once weaned. save the effort and purchase only organically started plants. They are clearly labeled as such and easy to find.

How to prepare your starts for planting

When you get all of your organic starts home, water them even if you plan to plant them very soon. Check each start for any disease problems, trim accordingly. Also inspect the roots. If for example the plants roots have been root bound when you pull them from the cup, just cut the root ball off by about a 1/3 or so, so that the new roots can expand when planted. Doing these simple tricks will lessen the plant shock of replanting.

Planting

Dig your hole for the new plant, just as deep as it's root ball and make your hole almost twice as wide as the root ball. Carefully place your new start in the hole you just dug and fill back in with the dirt you dug up. Hand tamp around the plant and then water thoroughly. You need only repeat this procedure for your entire garden. Once everything has been planted, tamped and watered, cover the entire area with a layer of organic mulch.   2-3 inches should be fine. I use the grass clippings from my lawn mixed with straw. The reason I do this, is to keep down the weeds and help maintain moisture.

Also at this stage, people suggest labeling your plants, either in the garden or on paper, but I have a much better method.......let the plant grow and then I know. Thanks for reading and good gardening.

Hey there, welcome to my blog on gardening and all things thereof.  I plan to talk about creating a vegetable garden, what to do and how.  Once you have your garden in the ground, what to do next?  How do you care for your garden, what happens if insects or bugs or worse yet.....slugs get into your garden. What you can do when any of the above happens.

How about a green house? They can be made fairly inexpensively and are a lot of fun to build. A green house allows you to extend your vegetable garden into different times of the year, not just summer.  How big of a greenhouse to build?   Is is expensive?  How to maintain it? These and any other questions you can think of, I will cover, plus a few of my own tips and secrets.

So thanks for stopping by and let's get to it.