When it comes to gardens, our method of choice has always been raised beds.
I'll be honest with you, the greatest factor influencing this choice has always been the fact that we have no rototiller or plow.
And I was NOT looking forward to creating a brand new raised bed garden section from scratch. AGAIN. (I've only ever done it every two years or so....har har...and it is more than a little bit back breaking. And often pretty expensive!)
Turns out, one of our very kind neighbors DOES just this sort of thing and wanted to do it for us!
What a huge blessing it was and is and will be all season long!
I have never had a plowed garden before but the most exciting part is not having to work so hard to start a new garden!
After this season, we will probably build it up, as we usually do, "lasagna style".
It will be interesting not having my usual walk-ways and many different beds.
I will have to fight every possible urge not to plant this thing so full I can't walk on it anywhere.
Because I have some BIG plans for this thing. BIG plans.
Sigh. It rocks. No pun intended. I'm dreaming of raised beds this fall, for onions, garlic and strawberries.
ReplyDeleteI love your "empty palette" comment. I soooo wish I could look at a garden like that...I just see "work". ;)
ReplyDeleteYou are awesome. :D
I forgot: in keeping with their twinly ways, my J-baby says tractor the same way.
ReplyDeleteAnd how dare you look so cute picking rocks. I look like a trainwreck. (Oh wait, thats all the time.)
We went from a big garden like that to raised beds and vertical gardening because we spent so much time weeding and all the wasted space from planting some things in rows verses square foot type gardening. It has taken some time to build the beds but knowing that I will have minimal weeding is nice.
ReplyDeleteWe have cows so we have quite a large compost pile(no expense for the dirt to fill the boxes) and hubby gets pallets for free from work so we can use those for lumber. We did purchase some red cedar because we found a great deal on it but otherwise everything else is made from recycled lumber.
It is so much fun to have a new space to be creative in, Happy Gardening to You!!!
(we still have a big flat garden like that at the big farm house because I can't convince my dad that tilling the soil year after year is not good for it. The one upside to having a flat garden is that we are able to have our very own ice skating rink every winter :)
It looks great, Rebecca! Just a quick question. How do you do your lasagna gardening? I've read about it and wondered how many layers do you use? What do you layer with, mulch and hay or do you add compost too?
ReplyDeleteAwsome! Have fun planning and doing. Down here in the south, I'm harvesting already!
ReplyDeleteBonnie~ that is so NOT a cute picture of me. I look like a man. A big, burly monster of a man. The end.
ReplyDeleteAmy~ oh-the 'work' comes and about time for harvesting a garden has become a palette no longer. But, as with child bearing-you kinda 'forget' about the pain it causes until TOO LATE! ;-)
Megan~ We have always done raised beds as well. But then-we always have moved every 2-3 years, leaving all that work behind. Last year I thought- these raised beds are great...but look at all the walkways we COULD be using to grow things! So I decided to try a 'raised bed' approach on a big garden scale. It is an experiment. It may fail- but I'll never know unless I try!
And I fully intend to have a weedless garden. Even if it means me slathering the whole thing with hay. We shall see if the garden is complacent. :-)
Regina~ lasagna gardening is basically just layering, layering and layering your garden with whatever you have and building UP your garden instead of tilling the soil down. You begin with layers of cardboard-to kill the weeds then add layers of compost, layers of hay, dirt, etc. Then, each year- you build up your soil by adding new layers. Throw a layer of leaves on in the fall. Throw dried/dead grass clippings in the summer. Throw compost on in the spring. I have found it works BEAUTIFULLY for weed control. There is a book called Lasagna Gardening that is really insightful if you want to learn more!
Christ~ no fair! :-)
Sorry Regina~ after reading your comment again it occurred to me that you were asking me specifically what we do and not what lasagna gardening IS.
ReplyDeleteI am doing a flower perennial garden area in all lasagna gardening this year so I think I will do a specific post on that for you.
As for our kitchen garden~ it was plowed and tilled this year but from now on we will be doing lasagna. What this will look like is:
after we plant all our veggies, I will put a hefty dose of hay on the whole thing (not, obviously, covering the plants.) This will keep the soil moist and the weeds DOWN but it will also be a great foundation for next years' garden.
When the garden is through producing, I will add layers of chicken poo (from our chicken house cleanings), compost, layers of dried leaves in the fall, layers of dried/dead grasses (from mowing this summer), etc.
I may even add a new layer of newspaper (before the compost, etc.) to keep the weeds down even further.
Then it will sit and "bake" all winter and in spring it will be ready to plant again.