Not sure what’s going on? See Part I: Raised Bed Gardening/Square Foot Gardening at Not A Lot of Plot.
Yesterday I talked about what was covered in the class given by Deb Walser on raised bed and square foot gardening. Today I’m going to talk about what I specifically learned and how I’m going to apply that for next year.
You might want to grab a cup of coffee. This is a long one with lots of resources.
First, an introduction to my garden:
My Raised Beds – Cinder Block
One of the very first years that I grew anything in my raised beds. The piping is gone, now, and the compost bin is near that back wall of the garage.
There is now a compost bin where the wheelbarrow is resting and eventually a cold frame will go in where the windows are.
I built my raised beds early in 2008. They are constructed out of cinder block layered two high. My six beds are each about three feet wide by eight feet long on the inside dimensions. They are four feet wide and nine feet four inches long if you include the cinderblocks. I constructed my six beds by laying out hardware cloth onto the ground and then covering it with a double or triple layer of newspaper and cardboard. I dumped in pure compost from a local free source. That’s how I began.
I attempted to layer plastic over thin PVC pipe (see above pictures), but I found that as the sun warmed it up and plants grew up to the pipe, it flexed. That has been removed.
My beds are now a mixture of the original compost, compost that I make in my bin from food and plant material, worm castings, and rabbit manure (composted). I haven’t done anything special with them (such as covering them) in years, but I did fill all the holes left by the cinder block with more of the compost and I use it to companion plant and put herbs. Every year it gets compacted and I just stab the hole vigorously (with PASSION) with my long thin gardening tool and the plant is good to go for the year.
When I selected my beds, I chose the one part in the yard where I could feasibly put them. They are behind the garage and out-of-the-way of the multitudes of playing children. The chain-link fence is on the north-east side: we selected a chain-link instead of solid fence to control shadows. There are shadows from the garage, but if we put the raised beds on the other side of the yard, they would have been incredibly awkward and shadowed by our solid fence, neighbor’s garage, and the hill itself. See here:
Standing at the pergola-topped gate, the garage door to my right, and looking into the yard. The raised beds are hidden behind the garage to the right of the photo.
Despite not having 100% full sun every day, we have had amazing success growing everything we’ve tried – including eggplants, jalapenos, and more. Remember – full sun really just means six or more hours of direct light. It’s very difficult to get full sun in my yard given that my town is full of trees and I live on the north side of a steeply sloping paha.
I left for vacation and my tomatoes went wild. In the foreground are about ten tomato plants. In the background growing on the fence you can see Scarlet Runner beans.
In fact, sometimes I think we have too much success as shown by this photo taken after we’d been gone on vacation for a week and a half. The chain-link also doubles as a place to grow my Scarlet Runner beans (my FAVORITE so far). The beautiful red blossoms and the vigorous plant are amazing as a living way to separate my yard from my neighbors’.
15 Things I’m Doing Different This Gardening Year
Deb brought some ideas that were new to me to this class. I was very excited to ponder how I could apply them to my garden. Other ideas have popped into my head since then as a response to things I’ve seen in gardening magazines or around the blogosphere.
1. I want to paint the cinderblocks.
I’d like for them to match my pots that I use on my vertical garden fence. I know that paint is a silly thing to do, environmentally – and particularly on porous cinderblock, but the grey of the cinderblock does get me down and it isn’t very visually appealing. I also happen to have leftover paint.
Even more than just painting the blocks, I might place bits of tile and mirror on the cinder block. The tile and mirror would also match the project I’m considering on my fountain.
2. Utilize more square foot gardening techniques as per Deb’s lecture.
Here’s a picture from someone who has cinder block beds AND square foot gardening. Those people are obviously pretty awesome. One way in which I’ll incorporate square foot gardening is by purchasing chain-link fence tension bars to lay out into the grid (thanks, Deb!). I can write in permanent marker on them to denote what the crop is in the square and next year I can clean it off and paint over the words in preparation for the next year’s use. I’m also going to try to find some resource books to learn more about the technique. It sounds very promising.
3. Mix in some vermiculite into my compost.
Deb informed us that vermiculite, which is a natural mineral used as a soil conditioner and for soilless mediums, can also be purchased in the installation area of your big box stores for much, cheaper than in the gardening center. While I am a huge believer in shopping locally and supporting our local garden centers, that stuff can be expensive. Especially in the quantities I’d need. I will be adding some vermiculite to my compost mixture to improve aeration and drainage and to help retain some water.
4. Use scissors to thin.
When I direct-sow my seedlings, instead of pulling them out of the raised bed, I am going to cut the weak off at the soil. This way I don’t disturb their roots. I’ve had issues before with trying to pull them out (or volunteers) and accidentally yanking out other tender seedlings. We’ll see how well this method works – weeds will require more intense (imagine me flexing right now) efforts.
5. Interplanting.
While I do some interplanting, I certainly don’t do a lot. I would really like to research this. So far I’ve been more interested in companion planting which seems very similar but yet somewhat different. For companion planting I was referred to Carrots Love Tomatoes.
6. Go even MORE vertical. MOAR VERTICAL!
Right now we have a gorgeous pergola-topped gate that Aaron designed and built. It has a wonderful lattice on both sides of the gate. In addition, we have two pieces of lattice flanking our garage door. More Scarlet Runner will be grown here.
On the left you can see raspberries and blackberries - the blackberries have all been removed. In the center you see a vining flowering plant the hummingbirds love. To the right of that you can see the lattice and pergola-structure.
We also, as mentioned above, use the chain-link fence as a place to grow Scarlet Runner beans. However, I want to add even more vertical gardening space (now I’m chortling like Tim the Toolman Taylor). Deb mentioned using cattle panels as archways – check out Ben’s photo here of his cattle panel vertical gardening. If his gorgeous photo isn’t enough to tempt you, read Mother Earth New’s article about vertical gardening – that’s gardener pornography right there. Yes, I said it.
First we will use three cattle panels to go between the six raised beds on the north-south orientation. Go ahead, scroll up and look. Later, we can add another eight on the east-west orientation (two in each walkway). The cattle panels will butt up against the exterior of the cinder blocks and will also get staked into the ground.
7. Add a mirror.
Sounds simple, right? I was reading a really interesting blog by HolleyGarden at Dreaming of Roses about adding a mirror to the garden. I happen to have an oval-shaped mirror down in the basement. I fully intend to add some water-resistant paint to the wooden supports and set that sucker up in my garden. This really doesn’t impact my raised beds directly, but if I can pretty up that area, I will.
On the note of prettying it up, I would like to dump a load of mulch in between all the beds. They are constructed, by accident, to where our reel motor can get between the beds, but it’s still a hassle I’d rather not have. Maybe some day I could grow a fragrant thyme in between the beds.
8. Make little seedling protection cages.
Every year I lose some of my seedlings to squirrels and birds. It seems inevitable that my cute wobbly little seedlings will become a scrumptious delicacy for the local wildlife. I feel like shooing them away and saying, “Look. I planted those grapes over there and I never harvest them. They’re ALL yours. Go eat those! Leave my sprouts alone!”
They never listen and the grape vine weeps.
This grape vine feels sad that the birds prefer the seedlings to its moist delicacies.
I’m going to make these cages out of hardware cloth. Great suggestion, Deb!
9. Create a cold frame and start my season earlier.
Deb had a slide that showed a piece of rigid plastic lying right on top of her raised bed. It let in the light, warmed up the dirt, and trapped the air. DUH! Why did I never think of this before? In addition, I could use passive solar techniques like black jugs filled with water. The cold frame can also be made of old windows or anything that will block the cold air and let the sun’s warmth and rays through (it does not need to be clear). I’ll be talking more about cold frames when I discuss another class from Not A Lot of Plot.
10. Create row covers and let my season go later.
We will be taking rigid PVC pipe (never let it be said we don’t learn from our mistakes) to construct a pentagon-ish shaped row cover that we will secure hardware cloth to and then layer plastic over and under. We’re hoping to ensure at least two inches of air cushion between the two layers of plastic. It gets really cold in Iowa and I’m hoping to keep the plants inside pretty warm!
One of the nice things about the cinderblock construction is that we can slid the PVC pipe right into a wooden 2″ by 4″ that is resting inside the cinderblock hole. Add in some clamp to keep the PVC from being lifted by the wind and blowing away, and we should be in business.
We’ll see how it works.
11. Succession planting.
I need to pay more attention to succession planting so I can maximize yield out of my beds. This will also, of course, be part of starting my season earlier and running it later. What would be really neat is if I could eventually get good enough that I could grow things – in the freezing cold Iowa weather – year round. Christmas Eve fresh and local spinach salad, anyone?
12. Interplanting edibles and ornamentals.
I know that this isn’t really part of my raised bed, but it sort of is. My raised beds are great and they produce TONS of food. But, I’m greedy. I want even more. This year I am going to make a concerted effort to start enough seedlings to pack my raised beds but ALSO pack my new ornamental bed next to my raised fence.
I made this bed in 2011. It will be a mix of ornamentals and edibles and will eventually wrap the entire yard.
13. Start ALL my own seedlings.
I have been a seed starter for years, but in the past two years I have been so busy with my former full-time job that I only half-heartedly tried. This year with my new indoor plant table/greenhouse, I’m going to be starting hundreds of seeds. I have lights, I have a fan, I have warming pads. Let’s rock this thing!
14. Build my new cold frames-slash-hot beds. Yes, give me your manure.
I’ll discuss this more in a future post.
15. Create a PVC-pipe hydroponic system.
I came across this article about vertical gardening a few days ago and had a brainstorm. The author discussed using PVC pipe to create a vertical hydroponic system by suspending the pipes nearly horizontal on chains. I sent it to my husband with a warning that it was ugly, but we have plans to pretty-it-up. (Thin copper sheeting wrapped around the PVC pipe?) This would be a great place to grow all my lettuces so that I have more room in my raised beds for other crops. It could be taken down, cleaned out, and stored over the winter. The plan is to have it on the south-west side of the garage hanging under the to-be-installed gutters which will feed into another rain barrel. Now I need to learn about how to set up a hydroponic system!
Talk With Me
Have you completed any similar projects? Are you inspired to make some changes in your yard or to put in a raised bed, vertical gardening space, or square foot garden? What do you think will work and what do you think won’t work?
If you’d like to read more about our yard here at EmSun, check out this past summer’s series. You might want to start with Our Plans for 2011.
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