henless' garden, 2018

[henless]

Well, I think it's about time I started a garden thread of my own. A place where I can post what I'm planting, how it's doing and any changes I need to make for the following year.

I started a few years ago with a small 10' raised garden bed.



This progressed to a BTE garden.



I decided to expand my BTE garden....




and add 4x8 "beds" to keep the growing areas separate. I would know where to apply the compost instead of composting the whole area.



As you can see, the bermuda grass was slowly taking over. Did I mention the termites? I had those beds in less than a year and the termites were already going to town on them. DH & I decided we would use cement blocks. They cost a bit more than the wood, but would last a lot longer in our area. Putting them up has gone slower than I wanted, but we're getting there.



I love the height of them. They make gardening with RA & Osteo so much easier! I still have 3 more to put in and then redo my asparagus bed that is to the left.

I'll post more tomorrow to bring it up to date.

 

[Beekissed]

I like the idea of concrete block raised beds. So, so many options with those and they will last you all the way. They should hold moisture well also.

You've come a long way in your gardening in a very short time! I'll be watching your thread with much interest, Henless.

 

[henless]

To continue...

My strawberry bed I put in last year, around May 21. I think I bought 12 plants, and transplanted about 8 from my old bed. These are quinault, an everbearing variety. I had them in a 2x8 bed, 12" high.



By the middle of July, they had grown pretty good.




After we had decided to redo the garden, I thinned out some of the strawberries and gave to my Mom to plant. I pulled out about 30 plants, and couldn't even tell where I pulled them. I was going to let the rest sit and replant them this fall, but decided to go ahead and pull everything out and make a whole new bed.



I planted 32 plants back into the bed, and still had 140 left over. I gave 30 more to my Mom (she didn't want any more!), and planted the rest scattered over our property. Most I planted around trees, so they wouldn't get mowed down. I figured if they lived great, if not, oh well.

So far, they seem to be doing good. Even the ones I planted in the yard are growing. New leaves are growing on all of the plants.




In the 2nd bed next to the berries, I have Candy onions, kale, carrots and radishes planted. Everything is up, even the onions. First ones I've ever planted from seed. I never even thought about planting them in the house and then transplanting them out in the garden. If these don't do ok, I'll try that next time.

I planted my spuds in the bed in front of the coop. Once they are harvested, I want to plant sweet potato slips there to grow the rest of the summer.



I had lettuce & kale planted over the winter for the chickens. My grandaughter put her school cabbage here. It was doing pretty good, but we didn't get to plant it here when she first got it. I needed to clean it out and put in some fresh dirt. I think that set the cabbage back a few weeks.



It's been raining so much over the last week or two, that we haven't been able to do much. We've gotten almost 4" of rain so far this weekend, and I hear thunder outside now. I'm hoping next weekend we can get another bed up.

 

[henless]

Thanks Bee!

Even though the blocks are heavy (to me any way), they are easier for me to move then a bed made of lumber. The hardest part is the first layer. Getting them all level puts a strain on your back with all that bending over. Once that layer is down, I can put the rest in.

I cardboard the bottom, put in a thick layer of leaves and add blood meal to help them break down. Then DH gets his tractor and fills them up with top soil. We have 3 loads to use to fill them up. Looks like we will have plenty left over to use in other areas. I put the rest of my compost pile in the beds we've made so far. For the rest, I will be using the compost from the chicken runs and composted cow manure we got from Lowes. I used the cow manure with my BTE garden. My plants did really well with it. Since it only costs $1.48 for a 40 lb bag, not a bad deal.

 

[Beekissed]

That's my biggest problem here when wanting raised beds...getting soil or material to fill them. I can fill them slowly with composting materials but I can't afford to buy soil enough to do it, nor could I move all that soil.

I love it that you sprouted your Candy onions outside...I'd love to do that here! I tried it last year but nothing happened for them. I think they would just be healthier planted as seed directly where they are going to be growing.

 

[henless]

We bought a tractor with a front end loader about 3 yrs ago. We use it all the time. We load the bucket up with the blocks and bring them over to the garden. Much easier than using a wheelbarrow or carrying by hand. Before we bought it, we had a 9 or 8 N tractor. Any time you wanted to use it, you had to work on it first. It was such a pain. Our only complaint with the Mahindra is that we should have found a way to buy it years ago.

I got lucky on the dirt. DH works for a construction company. One of the land owners did not want his topsoil, so he gave it to us. We just had to have it hauled over here. Still cost us a bit, but not near as much if we had to buy it too.

I'll let you know how my onions do. I just scattered them over the area and let them grow where they want. I figured as they got bigger, I could then them out and use the thinnings for cooking. I did the same with my carrots.

eta: The bed in front of the coop is just scrap dirt. It has compost, peat moss, potting soil what ever I could get my hands on to fill that one up. Everything I plant in there seems to grow good. I put my asparagus in there at first and they grew like crazy! Then I got to thinking that I really don't want to eat anything raw that the chicken dust would get on. So I use it for underground stuff or greens I feed to the chickens. I like my chickens, but I don't want to eat their dust, ya know? lol

 

[flowerbug]

as a note of warning, if you live in a place with freeze/thaws don't fill those bricks with dirt and plant in them (cap with something if you must, but don't fill). the expanding and contracting with the freezes will break some of them.

 

[henless]

Thanks for the warning flowerbug, but we don't have that much of a problem here. We get below freezing several times during the winter, even to the high teens, but not on a steady basis. I planted strawberries, marigolds and spices in my coop bed the first year I put it up. Only problems I've had with planting in the holes is that they dry out much faster.

 

[rainey]

Very nice! I bet you'll love raised bed gardening.

I put in 3 that are 8' x 2' x 3' high last year. Filling them was an issue but I was also constructing a berm in the lawn at that time and I needed a truckload of soil for that too so it wasn't that much more. In any case, it's pretty much a one time expense as you can just refresh them with humus once you've got them going.

As I get older and stiffer and accumulate more body parts that hurt at the end of the day, it's really a joy to have the business end of growing up where it's easier to get to.

 

[Beekissed]

I built one out of haybales this past fall and started filling it up with compostable materials but still need to add more to get it up far enough I can place some soil on top for planting.

I'll construct another of the same this spring for planting spuds into. That one's easier...I just plant the spuds into the wood chip/hay mulch and just keep adding more of the same as they grow.

They are about 14'x4'x2' deep. I'll place some ropes around the whole bed to keep the haybales intact when their strings rot and, eventually, when they are just too rotten to be used any further, I'll incorporate them into the bed soils and replace them with new bales.

It's a cheap and easy to use option for me, especially since I've went towards hay as my mulch layer instead of the wood chips.