Sure! I love to spread the love.
carugoman, no disrespect intended. I was jokin' with you, Sir.
greyfields has an entire lemon grove on his farm. They grow great where he lives
I will post updated garden pics later. Some stuff is going crazy. I can't wait to be able to harvest more.
Thanks for the garden compliments, too, badgersburrow. It wasn't so hard. Here's what we did:
As soon as unfrozenly possible, DH rototilled the entire main gardening area about 6" to 8" deep. Then we raked the soil into long rows with lots of space in between.
Then we bought a bunch of cedar fence boards and pine spikes from Home Depot. Just drilled them together into big rectangles.
We placed the frames over the rows and hammered them into the ground. Then we shoveled dirt from the sides of the rows to help fill in. We also added this compost/soil/sand combo called "Irish Mix" to ammend the powdery, easily compacted soil.
The end result? Dark, loose soil that is rich with organic elements great for veggie growing. The elevated beds keep the soil from compacting, the way it does when you walk on a traditional non-raised garden (thus giving root crops more room to grow). You can put more veggies in a raised bed than in a row, making better use of your square footage (the reason we have room for so many varieties). Weeding is SUPER EASY as you have elimated most of the weeds already. You just walk along every few days and pull up about 6 little weeds per beds. And there is room to move between your crops, to move a wheel barrow or garden cart, to bring in supplies like worm poop or a watering can, what have you.
Planting all the seeds and starts took about a month (a few hours every few days). It was my break time from being a mom to 3 toddlers. I could go out there, tend to the poultry, plant crops, weed, water, and relax. It is so rewarding knowing that if your plants are successful, and you understand preservation techniques, you will be able to help feed your family throughout the winter months, as well.
Let me just say,
I am very proud of this garden. I have never done ANY gardening on this scale before. I grew up around home gardens, but I never worked in them. I HATED GARDENING when I was growing up, because gardening meant weeding, and for a kid, weeding was BORING. I searched the net for a way to produce as many different crops as possible with the least amount of work. I found
The Vegetable Gardener's Bible: Discover Ed's High-Yield W-O-R-D System for All North American Gardening Regions by Edward C. Smith and it was EXACTLY what I needed. I can't recommend that book enough for anyone wanting to garden this way. Reading and researching about what you want and doing it, whether it is raising chickens or growing veggies, is accomplishable by anyone really, truly wanting to do it.
A quick tip: If you have no time to build a raised bed, just find some old fruit crates someone is willing to part with. I found a guy who was ripping out his apple orchard and got a bunch of
apple crates from him for $2 a piece! These already had feet on them, so I just drilled holes in the bottom for drainage, put some rocks in the bottom, filled them with heavily ammended soil, and planted my melons in them! Easy container gardening and CHEAP!
Hope that helps for all of you interested in how to garden with raised beds. I will update you on the various harvests as they come on. Please tell me what you are growing and how your crops are doing, too. Sharing information is what makes us smarter people. This self-sufficiency thing (or moving more towards it) can be very doable with focus. And maybe we can do it together
