My Raised Garden

[stargazer424]

I moved into a house last year and immediately started to plan out where to put a garden. This is the before:

It is a 40' x 10' area of land. I have some skills with 3D work so I started with designing this in 3D. This was the FIRST draft:

I worked on various changes and the final design became this:

Over winter the grass was covered with tarp. In the late winter/early spring the grass was dug up. tilled and a weed tarp was laid:

After the design was settled on, I ordered the lumber (non-treated douglas fir) and got to work

And here is the final result:

I hope my garden project inspires others.

 

[Meadowlark]

Hmmm. I noticed right off the bat in the first photo significant areas of shade. How did you account for that?

 

[stargazer424]

Late in the day I get shade from a big London Plane tree. Before I moved in I had thought about removing the tree. But it is a nice, old and healthy tree and gives good shade to the house and yard in the summer. I decided to keep it. The area where the garden is gets the most sun in my yard. The sun comes up from the left (other side of fence) and sets behind the tree off to the right.


The area of the garden that gets the most sun is where I planted peppers, just next to it are the tomatoes. The herbs are placed in the area between the fence and the shed as they don't need all day sun.

 

[Meadowlark]

The areas where even grass was not growing well stood out to me as possible problems for a garden....but that's the gardener in me seeing that.

 

[stargazer424]

The previous owner had a kid, and had slide in one of those dead grass spots. Also looks like there was something covering the other spot.

 

[stargazer424]

The ground soil (if you want to call it that) is too clay-like for planting, so I went with raised beds. Unfortunately to fill all that in, I ordered bulk top soil/compost mix...too much top soil, not enough compost and I am having drainage and nutrient issues that I will need to solve for next year.

 

[stargazer424]

FYI: regarding sun. Here is how it looked today at 2pm. Plenty of sun.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Very nice indeed!! Well done.

 

[stargazer424]

Very nice indeed!! Well done.

Thank you! And here is a bonus photo for you, based on your profile photo. My gardening buddy Cooper:

 

[Susan BBPM]

Yay - a Beagle!!! He's lovely. Is he good off-lead?

We've got 4 - Beanie pictured in my profile (15), Biggles (14), Poppy (1 yr), Monkey (10 months).

As you can imagine, gardening is decidedly difficult with two young Beagles running rampage. They dig things up faster than we plant!!

IMG_2248 by Paul Roberts, on Flickr

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Does the weed membrane still run under your beds? Could be the source of the drainage problems.

 

[stargazer424]

Yay - a Beagle!!! He's lovely. Is he good off-lead?

We've got 4 - Beanie pictured in my profile (15), Biggles (14), Poppy (1 yr), Monkey (10 months).

As you can imagine, gardening is decidedly difficult with two young Beagles running rampage. They dig things up faster than we plant!!

IMG_2248 by Paul Roberts, on Flickr

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!

 

[stargazer424]

Does the weed membrane still run under your beds? Could be the source of the drainage problems.

Indeed it does and I plan on emptying the boxes at the end of the season and removing it...it was a mistake I made. one of a few...the other was the quality of the soil...

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Given the chance many roots will penetrate further than the topsoil clay junction and the clay will gradually improve. Not just that you will get some clay in your top soil, and clay is not the Devil's spawn it is sometimes made out to be. Solid clay, nothing but clay, is not all that wonderful, but as one of the components of a mixed soil it is good stuff. The tiny size of the particles that make it up mean they get surrounded by a ball of water, and that will have nutrients dissolved in it. It's not that surprising really, think of the things that a good soil gets made up from, alone none of them are great. Straight compost is almost nutrient free, wood ash has potassium, but can be strong enough to 'burn', sand is just silicone, Dried blood, or blood and bone meal, lots of nutrients, but you wouldn't grow things in them, and so on. Mix them up and they are great. Clay is a good and useful addition to your soil and by adding to and mulching the top layer you will find it gradually mixes in.and helps keep water and nutrients available to the plants and that junction between topsoil and clay will blur and become less clear.

 

[stargazer424]

Given the chance many roots will penetrate further than the topsoil clay junction and the clay will gradually improve. Not just that you will get some clay in your top soil, and clay is not the Devil's spawn it is sometimes made out to be. Solid clay, nothing but clay, is not all that wonderful, but as one of the components of a mixed soil it is good stuff. The tiny size of the particles that make it up mean they get surrounded by a ball of water, and that will have nutrients dissolved in it. It's not that surprising really, think of the things that a good soil gets made up from, alone none of them are great. Straight compost is almost nutrient free, wood ash has potassium, but can be strong enough to 'burn', sand is just silicone, Dried blood, or blood and bone meal, lots of nutrients, but you wouldn't grow things in them, and so on. Mix them up and they are great. Clay is a good and useful addition to your soil and by adding to and mulching the top layer you will find it gradually mixes in.and helps keep water and nutrients available to the plants and that junction between topsoil and clay will blur and become less clear.

Yeah, it was a definite mistake leaving the weed tarp underneath...something I will be remedying after the growing season...