How to setup new garden. I need lots of help :) Updated PICS!!

[me&thegals]

Pat is spot on. Great advice that I forget myself year after year when I have oodles of seeds and a vast expanse of weed-free, virgin land. Then, come July, I'm ready to torch the whole thing (hey, a great weed-reducing idea!) because it is so out of control. Whatever you do, have fun with it. You will absolutely learn something new every year and there's always next year to do better (at least that's what I keep tell myself).

 

[Apopka Cluckers]

Thank you all for the great suggestions.

Would it be better to do raised beds or to just go ahead and plant directly into the ground? I hear that raised beds are better but I haven't done enough research to find out why exactly.

 

[beavis]

Thank you all for the great suggestions.

Would it be better to do raised beds or to just go ahead and plant directly into the ground? I hear that raised beds are better but I haven't done enough research to find out why exactly.

Raised beds...

Here is why:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_bed_gardening

http://raisedgarden.lifetips.com/cat/62709/benefits-of-raised-gardens/index.html

 

[Apopka Cluckers]

Thank you for those links. Very informative.

I was already leaning towards raised beds and those just gave me that final shove I needed.

So, like a lot of people, money is a big issue here. I already have a large about of used 2X6 planks that I can make the beds out of but I need to know if it is possible to find the soil wholesale or something? Home depot sells a 2 cu foot bag of soil for around 7$ and I can't imagine trying to fill a 3'X10'X6" raised bed with that stuff.

Thanks

 

[vfem]

Thank you for those links. Very informative.

I was already leaning towards raised beds and those just gave me that final shove I needed.

So, like a lot of people, money is a big issue here. I already have a large about of used 2X6 planks that I can make the beds out of but I need to know if it is possible to find the soil wholesale or something? Home depot sells a 2 cu foot bag of soil for around 7$ and I can't imagine trying to fill a 3'X10'X6" raised bed with that stuff.

Thanks

First, we dumpster dived all out wood for our chicken coop and raised garden beds... totally didn't pay for any of that. Even our chicken wire under the raised beds to keep the gophers out was free.

We have a pick up truck and we called local landsape supply companies (the kind the big guys use... not the nurseries or home depot style places). We pulled up with a truck and got a truck load of compost/to soil mix for $25.... filled 3 raised beds! It was one 'yard' worth of soil. Nwo is the time to buy though, its out of season for them and they need the $$$. Come March it will be back up to $40 a load!

 

[beavis]

Like vfem says, find a landscaping materials place near you.

I ordered 15 yards of soil last time (basically a dump truck load) and the delivery was free.

I think I paid $25/yard for it at the time.

Figure a yard is 27 cu. ft., so that is less than a dollar for 1 cu. ft of soil, much better than Home Depot can do.

 

[Apopka Cluckers]

Alright, This is going to be my first attempt at uploading pictures into a message so please bear with me. I just usually like to my blog site that I upload all of my pictures to.

My wife and I decided to build the raised boxes outside today and set them in the area we have predetermined was going to be the garden. Here are the pics (hopefully)

If the images showed up correctly that you should be able to see that we made 8 boxes which are all 9' by 3' and they are all 3' apart from each other. This should give us enough room to tend to them without having to stretch too far.

Anyone have any suggestions or see something that we missed/messed up? The third picture should show that the ground is very uneven and I was wondering if I needed to level it out for these or just build up the land to make the boxes level?

Thanks

 

[patandchickens]

Bear in mind that raised beds are going to get hotter (a problem in hot climates for cool-root things like peas) and require significantly more watering than if you were gardening in the ground. The main value of raised beds is for cold-soil, poorly drained or flood-prone areas.

But, very low shallow raised beds like yours will be less problem than taller ones, and I'm sure it will work out ok

You might want to sheet-compost all between the beds this year, just dump down lots of organic materials on the 'pathway' areas and ignore them, that will improve your soil over time and eventually you will have good soil *everywhere* in the garden plot, not just in raised beds

Have fun,

Pat

 

[beavis]

I think it looks great.

Do you plan on watering by hand or via drip?

Now would be a good time to install the drip lines if that is the route you are going. You would not necessarily need to hook up drip emitters, just the main lines.

 

[Apopka Cluckers]

I was thinking about drip watering but I have to look that up. What I am planning to do already is to trunk a water line between the garden and the chicken coop. This way I won't have to be walking back and forth with tubs of water for the chickens and I could set them up an auto water system.

This would leave me a chance to bring two pipes up out of the ground. One hooked to one of the poles holding the fence up and the other attached to the outside of the coop.

Watering is something that really has me concerned because I have the memory of a gnat and I forget to do it sometimes.

Any suggestions ?