veggie garden

barbnsteve

Hi Ladies!  I'm so excited to finally have a yard that one of my first steps is to plant a big veggie garden.  I'm thinking a raised box would be the best option.  We have a fairly small yard and I'm pretty sure the soil isn't the best (we are in a small city).  I could also do containers but I think that would be more of a pain.

Have any of you ever built and gardened from raised beds?  Pros/cons?  Helpful hints?

Thanks ladies, enjoy the start of May!

karome

I am using the Square Foot Gardening method.

You can check out the website (http://www.squarefootgardening.com/)  or get a copy of the book.  I ended up buying my own copy after reading the one at the library.

There is a "recipe" for great soil (1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 compost from various sources) that is recommended that I plan on using.

Also, check out the Gardening & Landscaping board as well. The ladies over there are quitre helpful as well.

 

Emily227

This is the method we used to build our raised bed.

It is beautiful! We used cedar wood. We filled it with new soil since we didn't have a lot of good soil either. It fits a ton of veggies. I planted mine about a month ago and it is doing really well. 

The only additions I made were to put a small fence around the garden (with the same material that you can put at the bottom) and small stakes. We didn't end up using the PVC piping for the bird net--we don't think it's necessary where we are. 

MessyM

I am so excited that other people get soo excited about gardening too! I found my ideas for my raised bed on DIY.com and BHG.com for my vegetable design ideas. One tip my dad gave me was to watch out for what type of wood you use to build your beds, if it is treated there is the potential for it to leak into your soil and then of course your food. Also put some rocks on the bottom to help with drainage and then make some new soil! (use some organic compost to help!)

treesapplaud

I wouldn't use peat moss or PVC in my garden, neither is particularly EF.  I'd replace the peat with compost and coffee grounds. I'd also try and find FSC marked or local wood.

treesapplaud

And don't forget to consider planting fruit trees and berry bushes and rhubarb, depending on what grows well in your area. It's always nice to have things growing which don't take much work at all but still taste great!

SuperGreen

We're doing SFG as well.  We have two 6x3" raised beds from Gardener's Supply.  We have crappy soil too so we dug down to about 8" and filled the hole with 60% bagged garden soil from home depot and 40% compost.  We have 3" stakes in each corner with netting around it to keep out the dog.  DH made two trellises for our peas that I'm not super happy with, but they work for now.  We've been harvesting spinach for several weeks, and currently have 2 kinds of peas, onions, and carrots growing, and are waiting on swiss chard seeds to germinate.  We have tomato and pepper seedlings growing indoors, and will direct-sow green beans, cucumbers, and basil in a few weeks.  We also do several kinds of herbs in pots on the patio.

And that's all with 40 sq. feet of space!  You can do it too, it's really fun!