Friday, September 18, 2020

Garden Friday

 

It's Garden Friday once again!
The weather's been-a-changin' this week
to more autumn-like temperatures.
Yesterday we had a steady day-long rain.
It did the garden good, so no complaints from me.
 
Blue Flag leek
 
Last Tuesday a few crops were planted in our first new bed
of the new veggie garden.
I'm happy to report that the carrots, leek, lettuce and snap peas
have all come up!
 

 
 Three additional beds, measuring 3X4, 
were added to the new location.
The idea behind the smaller beds is that they are a bit
easier for someone my size to manage.
I have a difficult time reaching across beds that are much wider.
The same concrete corner pieces were used here,
with boards that were cut for us at the store,
and anchored by rebar through the middle hole of the corners.
It took me only about half an hour to create all three beds.
 
 
With cardboard as the weedblocker in each box,
the insides are filled with branches, twigs and leaves
found on the property.
This fills up the space up to the second board,
while adding organic material to the bed.
 It also saves money by taking up some room in the bed,
so less soil is needed.
As long as there is at least six inches of soil,
most things can be grown quite successfully.
I'm hoping to get these three beds planted this weekend.
 
 
Here's my chook-blocking trick.
So that the chooks will not step into the beds
and possibly damage crops while searching for bugs and worms,
I stretched baling twine through the bed as well as
on the ends and tied it onto the cattle panel.
I also added a small piece of bamboo across the ends,
as an added measure of protection.
We'll see how well it works.

 
More cardboard was laid for grass and weed suppression.
There are three more raised beds to be constructed
and filled on the right side of this picture,
(you can see the flags marking the spots),
but I'm not sure I'll get to it in time to plant.
I'll just keep laying down cardboard as I acquire it,
so that woodchips can be added to the walkways.
I'd like to have a couple of dedicated pollinator beds
in the center between the food beds
as well as some type of vertical element.
It's a work in progress. 
 

We had our neighbor, who is a jack-of-all trades,
cut down this loropetalum bush,
as it was sitting almost directly on top of our septic tank.
It was a bit sad to see it go as the color was spectacular,
and it provided the chooks with ample shade,
but we don't want to create future problems.

 
Grateful for something fun to do while waiting
to get back outside in the garden.
 
May your garden be blessed 
with just the right amount of rain!

8 comments:

  1. Your garden is coming along splendidly. I need something like you've got to cat-proof my newly planted beds. Cats think they're litter boxes. :o

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  2. Happy you got some good rain, and sprouting veggies. That looks like my kind of jigsaw puzzle.

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    1. Thank you. Yes, I'm enjoying some indoor activity for a change. ;0D

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  3. It looks so beautiful! That's a great idea to make the beds smaller so you can access them easier. I hope the chicken proofing idea works - please do an update. I'm looking for a good idea so I can have them within our fenced in area working on beds that are done, but keep them out of the beds that are still producing. What a great and challenging puzzle!

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    1. I'll let you know about the baling twine. I think I'll add it to the rest of the beds, even those without a trellis. I guess if you're using bug netting, you could skip the baling twine.

      Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

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  4. Daisy, I know what you mean about the reach. Interesting concept for building raised beds. It looks to be easy and a quick way to build beds. I built my raised beds with landscaping timbers that lasted about 10 years. I'm now in the process of rebuilding them with concrete blocks that were given to me free. It's a lot more work than your method but then I never do anything the easy way. :-) I'm into that season of life where I try to build things in a way that I won't have to ever do it again.

    Happy gardening my friend.

    Nebraska Dave
    Urban Ranch

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    Replies
    1. Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Do it once and reap the benefits! Glad you found something that works for you. Are you growing anything outside this season or is it just too cold?

      Always good to see you here, Dave.

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