Does anybody garden with raised beds?

[Xtina]

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This is awesome, and exactly what I was looking for. My question is, how do you get in to tend the vegetables?

 

[Xtina]

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I didn't know chickens need protecting from goats. What will the goats do to them?

 

[Catalina]

The beds are 2'x8', 3'x3' or 2'x4'. The sides are from 8" to 14" tall.
I can reach the center of all the beds.
The 2'x8' and and 2'x4' are easy to straddle too

 

[TexasVet]

I'm in the process of rebuilding my raised beds too. We've been in a terrible drought, so the only wet/green spot in the yard is the garden. The darn gophers sometimes ate a whole row of corn per day!

So this year I'm laying down 2-foot-wide chicken wire, then placing cinder blocks on top to make long, narrow rows. It'll keep the gophers out, and will be narrow enough to run a drip hose down the middle.

I sure hope it works, because last year's garden was a total bust.

Kathy in Texas

 

[farmerbrown]

Some of my goats have bad attitudes and do not like my chickens. The goats were keepers so culling them out would not do. The goats would also eat the grasses down way to low and would have chickens in a mud bath when they were out. My chicken coop also holds the goat feed so they hang around it all the time.

 

[Hoot]

I once saw a white tail spike buck kill a wild turkey. I was amazed the deer could catch the turkey, much less kill it. I can picture the goat/ chicken altercation.

Hoot

 

[luvarabhorses]

Two comments. I got a library book called Lasagna Gardening. It's about laying newspaper down initially and then layers of dirt, manure, compost, shredded leaves then newspaper, light layer of dirt mix to hold down newspaper. I rip holes in top paper and plant. The few weeds you get are easy to pull out and you keep piling lasagna style. I find it works great and I spend practically no time weeding.
Second, I've been working on a "designer" chicken, cochin crosses, that aren't likely to hop or fly over a very minimal garden fence. IMO, hamburgs and bantys are the most likely to destroy your garden. I love the look of a lot of garden destroyers though, so I've been creating visually appealing birds that stay grounded.

 

[Xtina]

Nice! I heard about newspaper gardening before. Now I'm definitely going to do it!

And that goat/deer, chicken/turkey comparison was spot on! Please tell me the deer didn't eat the turkey?

 

[Leah-yes I know I'm crazy]

I have the lasagna gardening book! It's wonderful.
I've kind of turned that into cardboard box gardening gardening around here because I have such poor soil. I dig a pit the size of the box I'm going to use, put compost in the bottom, then soil, papers, plant and mulch. It keeps the good soil where I need it. It also reduces transplant stress if you can take a good amount of soil with a plant to the new location.

 

[TexasVet]

I'm surprised that some of you like lasagne gardening. The local Master Gardeners group planted a lasagne garden next to a conventional garden and didn't get good results. They said many of their plants were stunted or turned yellow, and the yield was about 1/2 that of the conventional garden. They didn't have to weed much, but they didn't get a good crop either.

Maybe I'll try a test patch in my garden this year to see for myself.

Kathy in Texas