Tag: Raised Beds

Building A New Garden Using Raised Beds
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Building A New Garden Using Raised Beds

Sarah

A month into our new place I finally found the batteries for our push lawn mower (and ancient Greenworks), which was….something desperately needed.

Our new place is almost nothing but lawn (oh yay) and we were looking very unkempt. The rain this spring has led to very lush lawn, which then gave a place for these annoying gnat like flies to hide in, that swarm on warm days.

As I pushed that awful broken down mower, it gave me a lot of time to think about where to put a garden. Having a month here, I have had time to watch the sun shift. My original idea, behind the house, doesn’t really feel like it will be a good choice after all. It only gets sun in the afternoon for a few hours, and is in the shade by the house by 5 pm, and is sloped downhill in general. It’s also in an area that holds the water better, so the grass grows deeper back there. There is a seasonal emergency creek that divides the properties here, in case of heavy rain, and we can’t build anything within a certain distance, so I realized that a garden there might just have far too many issues.

(The trees in the mid right of the photo below are just above the creek area)

Not long after this, my awesome neighbor offered to mow the rest of our lawn on his ridie. The worst parts – super thick and heavy down by the creek. He saved me at least 6 hours of mowing and many charging of those batteries. By the next time I need to mow, we should have the flail mower on the tractor, and it won’t be hard.

Instead, there is an area to the left of the house that is nearly flat, dry and hard packed. Not great for in ground, but raise beds? Yes. Perfect. It needs a tree taken out (an unattractive pine tree), and it gets nice sun exposure.It is in the sun by mid morning, and holds sun till well past dinner time.

It’s also more importantly, mostly flat. It’s on very hard pack land, so not good for an inground garden at all. We also have rock seams around the upper parts, and I am sure under this area it has lots of rock buried. So, great for raised beds!

I will have to work out water for the site, but I think it will work well over time.

The bed will have pro farm/garden fabric laid down, to ensure weed free growing, and to block rodents as well I am considering laying under that hardware cloth. It will be properly fenced in, as we do have some deer, though they keep to the edges, near the farm a bit away from us. No need to offer an all you can eat buffet though.

The goal is to have a garden big enough to have a greenhouse in the center, with beds around it, and pots as well. With walking space between the beds, that I can line with chipped wood to walk on. Unlike the last 7 years, I want/need this to look like I planned it, and have it nice looking as it will be visible from the road.

This is the start of the new garden – it will be major work – but beyond worth it.

I have to do something. The container garden is crazy down on the patio – I can’t help myself. I love plants way too much. It encourages me to get moving on the project.

The raised beds:

In the past years, and last 3 properties, I was more about just having beds and not the look. So I would use a hodge-podge of materials. Reclaimed pavers, cinder blocks, felled trees. Whatever I could source, preferably for the lowest cost. This time I want them to match. It pains me to spend the money – but I want it nice.

I have been using grow bags on the patio this spring, and they work pretty well, so I was intrigued to find that I could source grow bags that line metal raised beds. And they are compartments, so you can grow things like mint, and keep them from growing under and taking over. They are 4 feet by 4 feet and a foot high. If you are using 8 by 4 foot raised beds, you can fit two of them in.

I picked up a twin pack of 8 by 4 by 1 foot beds for $69.99 from Amazon to try out, to see if I liked the look, were they durable and such. They have a rod in the center for stability.

The grow bags I picked up (I ordered two packs of them). They were $19.99 for each two pack. They are the same felt materiel as most grow bags are. The compartments are 2 feet each, giving you 4 compartments per bag, or 8 total in an 8 foot raised bed. They can seem overwhelming when you open them up, but once filled and in a frame, do just fine.

So not square foot gardening, but 2-square foot gardening!

Why use liners?

There are a couple of reasons to use liners:

  • Soil stays in the bags and doesn’t leak out over times as it settles (which happens in the raised beds).
  • It offers weed protection, from coming up from below. Too often (and me included) it’s easy to lay down cardboard and think you won’t have weeds in your beds because of that. Well, you won’t the first year. But after? Eventually grass comes up and so does dandelions, thistles and more.
  • It helps hold in moisture.
  • It controls plants with compatibility issues – such as peppermint, lemon balm, well honestly ALL plants from the mint family. It keeps their roots from spreading everywhere.

I ended up buying more.

With the risk of China tariffs, I went back and bought more, to prepare for the garden. It’s going to be done, so might as well get ready!

I’ll post an update once I start the building of the garden – first I need to get any potential utilities flagged so I know where they are, since I will be putting posts into the ground.

FTC Disclosure: This post contains affilate links.

~Sarah

A Simple Raised Bed Concept For A Family Of Four
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

A Simple Raised Bed Concept For A Family Of Four

Sarah

Social media does have a positive side—and that is giving one ideas to work with. I saw this one over the winter and liked it. It’s simple and one that most people could follow. Tiny Garden Habit posted it, and if you are looking for articles on small scale growing, this is a great place to waste some time reading.

I would base it in the beds being 8 feet long by 4 feet wide, as the illustration doesn’t precisely tell one that information (the downside of social media is it isn’t always deeply informative). It is the standard for size in raised beds.

5 raised beds would fit easily in most suburban backyards, leaving room for kids and a dog to play.

The key in it is using square foot planting. High density planting.

With proper watering, high density works in using less water, but also in controlling weeds. It takes planning, especially if you pick things to plant that need to be trellised. You will need to watch the sun, and how it moves across your land – so that anything tall is in the back.

But this can inspire one to get growing, even though they might feel that they don’t “have the room” to have a garden. All you need is just enough room to move around the beds to weed, water and harvest. It doesn’t have to sprawl a lot.

Do you need to grow what is shown? Of course not. You should grow what you like to eat. If you hate cilantro, grow parsley or celery instead.I myself prefer to grow my herbs in large pots, by themself. But that is me, and I also like letting my plants grow big, as I cut off them often. Most people only need one parsley plant per family, not a row.

Change the flowers (though they have a beneficial side, to deflect certain insects). Instead of Marigolds, grow Calendula or whatever grabs your fancy.

The top bed would need a cattle panel or a trellis to grow up on, placed in the middle of the bed. Or grow bush varieties to save space – and the need to build a trellis.

The key is to plant seeds (and actual plants) far more densely than you are used to doing. Ignore the recommendations on the seed packages. You can thin out as needed (like beets or carrots). Peas grow well when crowded, I have found – and if you grow bush peas versus climbing types, they grow faster and take less room.

Start with plants (which you can grow in a simple greenhouse or buy) for produce such as tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, and onions. You will be able to space them accurately and time them better to the last frost date in your grow zone.

I would not plant strawberries in a raised bed like this—they should have their own bed or be in containers, sprinkled around the garden – if your yard has a fence you can put plant hangers on the posts, and hang pots up easily. They are space hogs in raised beds and invite slugs and snails in. I would double up a favorite veggie or plant some summer squash there (did you know you can grow it upright on a cattle panel?).

One last tip? Do not plant sunflowers with other items, no matter how tempting it can be to plant a back row (I get it, it is pretty). However, sunflowers can and will leach out and cause any other plant nearby to not grow well, or at all. It wants to reach the sun, and it does it efficiently. Consider planting it along a fence line, far at the back, by itself. Where it can grow happily.

~Sarah

The New Kitchen Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The New Kitchen Garden

Sarah

Big news! We are moving soon—across the country. In my work on the new place, I found I couldn’t pass up on at least starting an easy garden. My hands must be in the soil! So while doing work on the new place, I went shopping and got some soil, a few plants, and a couple pots (though I found some on the land that I cleaned up).

In saying goodbye to the homestead on the island and looking forward to the new place we are moving to, I learned one extensive lesson in this last homestead:

It’s OK to take the first year mostly off, learn the land, and go from there.

I nearly burned myself out on the island in the summer of 2018. After leaving behind a well-crafted urban farm, I desperately wanted an established garden. I spent the entire spring and fall frantically trying to get beds in the ground and spending too much money on temporary deer fences.

It’s easy to forget that making that urban farm, like our homestead on the island, took years of hard work.

I cannot forget that I also worked on our homestead for 7 years. It takes time!

If there is one thing that isn’t hard, it is to start a kitchen garden.

It’s a low investment. Our new place has a deck off the living room, baking in the sun. Under it is a brick patio where pots can be put out.

Turning land, building beds, or putting up wildlife fences are unnecessary until we are settled in. Just fill pots, grow bags, plant items, enjoy herbs, and produce them in the first summer and fall. The investment is in a few bags of soil and the containers.

It’s still awhile till spring, so I planted things had been in the cold already.

Two grapes, 2 blueberries and bare root strawberries. I also planted a bulb of garlic I brought with us, to restart my hardneck garlic.

I will move the grapes later, into the ground, but I wanted them to get going, to waken up.

I found an old wheelbarrow, all rusty and unusable. By it, I found broken pottery, so I put them together and made a deep planter to add. Use what you have first before spending money. I planted garlic in it. Again, nothing says I will leave it in there, but it can sit for a few weeks until I have time to build the first beds. The garlic will sprout, and start growing for us.

As spring happens, I will add a lot more on the patio. Lettice, bush peas, and so on. Herb plants. A seat or two, to invite one to hang out and enjoy the views. It will be easy to maintain, and quick to walk out to, to take care of.

~Sarah

Developing A Kitchen Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Developing A Kitchen Garden

Sarah

This summer, as I worked on the patios around our house, I decided I wanted a kitchen garden—one close to the house, where I’d be more likely to come out and enjoy it and grab produce for dinner.

When we moved here in 2018, I had a small kitchen garden, all in large pots, on the lower patio that first year.

After I developed the lower gardens, which are 2 acres below the house, I quit growing food by the house because I had large in-ground beds to grow in.

My arm injury taught me a lesson. Even if the distance doesn’t seem long, you won’t go down there enough, especially if you need a lot of help.

While the gardens did grow this year, I couldn’t water or weed enough. The central bed I had the tomatoes in was overrun by Voles, which destroyed ¾ of the crop by chewing the plants at the base. It stayed alive for the first ten weeks, only for the kids to water it here and there for me. Even now, as I clean up for winter, I can only do so much by myself. There are only so many hours I have help from them, with school going on.

But up by the house, that I can work on. By myself. Thoough help is appreciated of course.

Off of the lower patio, there is “grass,” which is flat and then goes downhill. There is a major retaining wall, and I don’t want to use that part. I will put in a low fence to keep the deer away from wandering in. I see them once a week, on average, on the cameras, but all they do is eat grass. They leave the bed and greenhouse alone, though they are nearby on the grassy area.

But I want to lock off their access to the lower patio area (they use the steps near the red building to get up to the grass). Putting in a fence with 3-foot-high metal fencing and lightweight U posts will be quick and easy.

The pop-up greenhouse sits on the patio. It will stay. With two carts getting full of soil, I am going to reuse as much of it as I can and finish breaking down the bed. Waste not, want not.

I think I am going to lay down farm fabric across the flat areas to smother the weeds and “grass.” I picked up six small 4-foot raised beds and am considering putting them with a couple more beds made of the stones I am pulling apart.

With walking paths between the beds and wood chips put down. I need to of course measure it all, and plot it out on paper, before I start building beds.

I can fit two beds along the house, with a strip behind, for access on all four sides. It is an area we have never used, in nearly seven years here.

The biggest issue was waiting for the growing season to wind down, so I could start tearing down this 8-foot raised bed, The boys stacked many of the paver bricks, to the side, and started digging out the soil.

My first goal will be to get the first fabric down, build the beds, and fill them under the window along the house. Then, I will finish breaking down this bed. Any leftover soil will be spread out onto the land to even it out a bit more. Then, I will cover it with fabric and make new beds over it.

I aim to have ten raised beds, each one for a different vegetable. Depending on placement, I might be able to have more. We shall see!

Today, the rain returns for the next week, but I hope to get outside between storms (and windy days often blow the rain away, and I have time to work) and start building the new beds this week.

I will update once it is all built. But for now? I feel like I can see it, and I will soon have it done.

~Sarah

The Quick Pallet Raised Bed
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The Quick Pallet Raised Bed

Sarah

I first made raised beds out of wooden pallets in 2015, when we were in our first years of urban homesteading. We were living on a lot 1/3 of an acre in size, so I fit in beds where I could amongst the permanent beds I had built. At the time, I had heard about building from pallets (oh so long ago!) and got to work. I needed a quick solution because we had extra tomatoes and peppers to plant.

When you pick up pallets (and it’s very easy to source them for free; ask at locally owned hardware stores and such; they often have them outside to pick up), you will want to look at the side of the pallets to ensure you are using basic ones, without treatments. See here for an easy breakdown.

The good news is that the “bad” pallets (chemically treated) are usually expensive to make/very durable, so the companies often return them for reuse. They are not often left out for free.

The project we started:

Using a sawzall, I cut off the top boards (now we have a pallet wrecker that pops the boards off). I left the center rib in while stacking two pallets to make a deeper bed.

WIth a staple gun I attached yard/garden fabric to the bottom, then the sides. I trimmed the excess fabric.

I flipped it over and attached the fabric on top; it was done. I found a spot between bushes and beds.

It was filled with a light blend of potting mix and compost, and then I planted tomatoes and pepper plants in it.

I used it for about two years before it fell apart. When that happened, I discarded the fabric, tossed the soil in the compost bin, and burned the wood in our fire pit. Not long after, we moved, leaving urban life behind in 2018, and my raised bed idea was long forgotten.

I saw a photo on Facebook posted on a gardening page the other week, and I remembered that bed long ago.

I looked around the property and found a well-used pallet holding a tarp on a compost pile.

With the work I am doing in the fenced berry bed (it’s a vast garden plot), I have lots of room to add raised beds here and there. I don’t want permanent structures, so this worked.

I had a bit of yard fabric left over, so I stapled it onto the wood.

This time, I decided to leave the boards on the pallet for rows.

I filled it up with deeply broken-down compost (it’s four years old) and let it settle.

Then, I seeded it with various vegetable seeds.

We shall see how it works this year in this sunny bed tucked in between 2 blueberry bushes.

Minimal cost, as the fabric was a leftover piece and the soil was paid for long ago. I like it when a quick homesteading project happens easily.

~Sarah