Your 2024 Garden

[PatienceT]

How many folks here have started planning their garden for next year. I'm in the early stages of planning based on how much of what we need to use fresh and preseve by drying, freezing, canning, and pickling.

I am in the process of deciding what style of gardening I want to do and what I want plant. I am excited for this spring and summer.

 

[Iluveggers]

I am in the process of deciding what style of gardening I want to do and what I want plant. I am excited for this spring and summer.

My best advice is start small! You won’t know what grows well and how much you can handle until a year or two in. We started with one 4x8 box and I grew a few of my favorites only. Hub added 2 more boxes year 2, and 2 again in year 3. Then he decided to till up another section adjacent. That kept me busy for awhile. This year we are adding on again. Gives me time to adjust things and change and adapt. Good luck!

 

[Nomadicus]

I am in the process of deciding what style of gardening I want to do and what I want plant. I am excited for this spring and summer.

I wish we could justify the cost of raised beds but there is no way to do so for bulk canning and freezing. There would be no savings at all for us. I like to grow tomatoes, sweet corn, and okra because they grow tall and I can harvest most of the crop without bending. I have a rolling seat I can use to harvest things like the crops of greens and strawberries. Onions too. My wife is growing herbs in raised beds again this year. The one thing she is doing different is waiting until I build a fence around them. Last year the chickens used them for healthy treats.

 

[Sally PB]

I wish we could justify the cost of raised beds but there is no way to do so for bulk canning and freezing.

Build them out of pallets.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/show-me-your-pallet-projects.1541562/page-228

This thread has lots of ideas for pallet wood, and gtaus gives detailed instructions of how he makes things. And then updates on how they hold up, and improvements. He builds raised pallet beds for under $5 each.

 

[fuzzi]

Build them out of pallets.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/show-me-your-pallet-projects.1541562/page-228

This thread has lots of ideas for pallet wood, and gtaus gives detailed instructions of how he makes things. And then updates on how they hold up, and improvements. He builds raised pallet beds for under $5 each.

That is an excellent resource. There's no need to start from the beginning, @gtaus adds updates and improvement suggestions all throughout the thread.

My best advice is start small! You won’t know what grows well and how much you can handle until a year or two in. We started with one 4x8 box and I grew a few of my favorites only. Hub added 2 more boxes year 2, and 2 again in year 3. Then he decided to till up another section adjacent. That kept me busy for awhile. This year we are adding on again. Gives me time to adjust things and change and adapt. Good luck!

This is also excellent. Trying to maintain a 20'x30' garden was too much for me. I gave up. When I decided to try again, I went small with one 8'x4'x14"H raised bed.

I added 2 more last year, and now have 5 although I am still setting up the last 2.

I wish we could justify the cost of raised beds but there is no way to do so for bulk canning and freezing. There would be no savings at all for us. I like to grow tomatoes, sweet corn, and okra because they grow tall and I can harvest most of the crop without bending. I have a rolling seat I can use to harvest things like the crops of greens and strawberries. Onions too. My wife is growing herbs in raised beds again this year. The one thing she is doing different is waiting until I build a fence around them. Last year the chickens used them for healthy treats.

You need to do what fits your abilities and pocketbook. I had some money saved up that I used to invest in my cedar wood raised bed kits. Great company and products:
https://greenesfence.com

 

[Nomadicus]

I've read the thread on building with pallets. Getting enough pallets even to start is not really feasible at this time. Over the summer I may can get a few done. Another drawback is the cost and time filling them with good dirt. For now I'll limp along and farm like my ancestors did as long as I can. I have an implement for my tiller to build ridges to plant things on that don't like their feet wet when we get heavy rains. It's time to get going. I'm breaking ground for sweet corn today. That's one thing that's not geared for raised beds if you plan on freezing a years supply.

 

[Nomadicus]

I'm about 2/3 done with tilling enough sod ground for a sweet corn patch. I'll till it again and again now to kill off the cut worms and grubs. By dark I will be tired but it will feel good when I can stand on the porch and look at the results of my labor. One thing I would really like raised beds for is my sweet onions. I've got some good tools to work them without having to bend over. When it's time to pull them I think I can coerce a kid I raised for help. I can threaten to cut her inheritance if she doesn't.

 

[gtaus]

I wish we could justify the cost of raised beds

It can be very expensive to build raised beds out of cedar or redwood. But they last a very long time. I build raised beds out of pallet wood for less than $2.00 each, and my oldest raised beds are stilling holding up well at 5+ years old.

The one thing she is doing different is waiting until I build a fence around them.

Have you considered putting a critter fence on top of a raised bed? Not all crops need extra protection, but if you built a fence for the raised bed, you could put it on top of whatever raised bed needs protection at that time, and move it to another bed next year if needed.

I like some critter fencing that @Smokerbill built and posted pictures. Here is a sample...

IIRC, @Smokerbill had problems with deer getting into his gardens, he had considered fencing the entire garden, but settled on individual fencing for the raised beds to protect them. It can be very expensive to deer proof an entire garden, but putting fencing on top of a raised bed for only the plants that need protection can save a person a lot of money.

Build them out of pallets.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/show-me-your-pallet-projects.1541562/page-228

This thread has lots of ideas for pallet wood, and gtaus gives detailed instructions of how he makes things. And then updates on how they hold up, and improvements. He builds raised pallet beds for under $5 each.

Thanks for the shout out. Good to hear that people still enjoy the postings.

I've read the thread on building with pallets. Getting enough pallets even to start is not really feasible at this time. Over the summer I may can get a few done. Another drawback is the cost and time filling them with good dirt. For now I'll limp along and farm like my ancestors did as long as I can.

I realize that not everybody has the tools, or desire, to make raised beds out of pallet wood. It's something I enjoy so I post some of my pallet projects to share with others. My pallet wood raised bed v2.0 is my current favorite build, and it costs me less than $2.00 per bed.

In case you have not seen that version of my pallet wood raised bed...

There are other designs that are easy to build using just 2 pallets, cutting them in half, and screwing the 4-halves of the pallets to make a raised bed. That would look something like this...

As to the cost of filling them with dirt, I use the hügelkultur raised bed method in that I fill the bottom half of my raised beds with logs, branches, and other organics and just fill the top 6-8 inches with a topsoil/chicken run compost mix. That really saves a lot of money if you have to buy topsoil, like I do. If you have good soil that you are already planting in for your crops, you could dig some topsoil out of the raised bed, fill up the hole with hügelkultur wood and organics, and then put your native topsoil back on top the hügelkultur build.

Nothing wrong with planting in ground, and good for you if it works. All I can say is that I had very poor soil living on lakeshore, so in ground planting never produced much food for me. Over the years, I switched over to growing food in raised beds with quality topsoil and chicken run compost. Not only do I grow so much more food in less area, but at my age, I no longer have to bend over all the time to maintain my gardens. All my new raised beds are 16 inches high and that makes it very easy for me to tend the gardens. Converting to raised beds both increased my productivity and reduced the labor required to maintain my gardens.

I can appreciate you stating that you will "...limp along and farm like my ancestors did as long as I can." What I am suggesting is that I have found that converting to raised beds has allowed me extra years to enjoy gardening, with less effort, and much more productivity. If I had stayed with my poor in-ground garden soil, I would have given up gardening many years ago.

Anyways, good luck with your 2024 gardening.

 

[Nomadicus]

I will have more than 100 canning tomato plants out and maybe 15 for table use for us and family. Total garden area will be nearly an acre this year. It's easy to have a kitchen garden in raised beds but large scale gardens for canning, drying, and freezing a years supply is a whole different story.

My late father in law in his late 80's planted his garden by crawling down the rows putting seed spaced the way he wanted them. I have one row planter for dropping seed.

 

[gtaus]

I will have more than 100 canning tomato plants out and maybe 15 for table use for us and family. Total garden area will be nearly an acre this year. It's easy to have a kitchen garden in raised beds but large scale gardens for canning, drying, and freezing a years supply is a whole different story.

Yes, that's a different story to be sure. I don't think I would have the energy to work a garden that was nearly an acre in size. Good for you.