Do You Garden?

I have tried and failed on many occasions to create a garden, all times because I bit off more than I could chew.  Last year, I had some modest success with gardening after some research and stepping down and using a very small area.

With Earth Day coming up, I thought I might share some of the tips I've gleaned from my research for the people who are just starting out with gardening.  Obviously, I am still a novice, so my information is probably not going to be useful to anyone who's been gardening for years.

I decided on raised bed and container gardening last year, and I really liked how much easier it was than tilling up a patch of land and dealing with weeds and critters.  There are a lot of terms for the techniques that I used:  container, square foot, lasagna, and raised bed are some of the types I combined.

My husband built a square frame from 2x4s that was 6 feet long and 2 feet wide, two boards high (so about 8 inches tall.)  There were a lot of things we could buy that would have cost a lot more, but this worked for us.  I then used lasagna gardening to prepare the plot for planting.  What I love the best about it is the flexibility.  Use whatever materials you have on hand, no specific order or method necessary, and the time for the bed to be prepared is minimal.

I then used square foot gardening to plant 12 different crops into that small bed.  I used one square foot for each of the plants that I wanted to grow, and it was moderately successful for most.  My main issue probably had a lot more to do with the weather than anything else.  We had a very cool and wet summer and some crops just didn't fare as well.

It may not be too easy to see from this photo (last July 1), but I really did manage to cram some larger varieties into their own little squares.  The rabbits kept eating anything that got outside the fence, so we never got any squash.  I have a new plan for this year, which I will explain in the next post.

It's not a pretty picture, but this is my small bed all planted and covered in bird netting in order to thwart some critters.  It was amazing how beautiful the soil was.  It was almost "fluffy" and not compacted at all.  We added a new layer of cardboard, some home grown compost, then a little additional soil in order to bring the soil level back up to the top.  I also planted in short rows this time, which I hope will give a little more room for the plants.

This is the start of my new larger bed (8 ft x 4 ft).  You can see I have cardboard, leaves and other yard waste, then some compost also.  I added newspaper and then topped it off with potting mix.  I started the seeds for this section indoors so that they can get ready while this soil gets ready for the new plants.

 Big girl helping out with the leaf layer.  Finished large bed below.

I will post some other things that I tried in an additional post, along with some of the things I am changing this year.