Why and How to Keep a Garden Journal

April 4, 2013 by

A Pinch of Joy Garden Journal

A garden is an ever changing story!  Keeping a journal helps in both the story telling and the evolution.   A garden is also an investment of time and energy and money.  A journal can help you maximize your investments. People garden for different reasons. Some enjoy the beauty of flowers.  Others concentrate on food production, either for healthy organic produce or perhaps to stretch a budget.   Some love the exercise and chance to be in touch with nature.  Whether you have only one reason or all of the above, a journal will help you meet your goals.  A journal will make the journey more memorable and more fruitful in so many ways.  

 You can note where you bought that hard to find tool that helps so much.  I loved a short handled ergonomic spade that was t.h.e. perfect garden tool.  It was just the right size for short me and was built to multiply the force applied.  Unfortunately applied force and an unyielding rock broke the handle sometime after its eighth birthday.  No way to replace it because I don’t even know the brand name!   Make notes of the dimensions of the different areas in your garden as you measure during the season.  Next year,  when you purchase mulch or topsoil, the figures are right there to save you time and energy.  Keep the phone number of that arborist who cleaned the yard so thoroughly after pruning your trees.  Or the high schooler who mowed your lawn while you were gone.

 In a journal you can record what worked and what didn’t.  Note which flowers bloomed when and how they interacted with their neighbors.   Next season, you might want to move them so colors enhance each other.  Put a white plant next to the red, or create an ombre effect with the pink and purples.  Intersperse non-blooming green through the garden to make a unifying ribbon.   Or maybe move a second plant that will come into full bloom and hide the scraggly remnants of an early bloomer.  If you have a cluster of plants that are pure eye candy, be sure to note that!    Keep track of which plants did poorly.  Perhaps the neighbor’s tree is now shading the struggling plant and it needs to be moved to a sunnier spot.  Or maybe it needs to be replaced with a healthier cousin.

Add photos to supplement your notes.  They will help remember what a cosmos looks like, or how that runty shrub doesn’t hide the eyesore you wanted it to camoflauge even though it’s been there several years.   A photo will jog your memory of the eggplant or Brussels sprout that shaded out the carrots. It is fun to look back and see how an area has changed from skinny plants with lots of mulch in between to something lush and beautiful.  Photos of the good are a wonderful reminder of why we garden!

A calendar serves as a reminder.  Note when you prepared the garden in the spring, what chores you did in the fall for your own custom made reminder and to do list for following years.  When was tomato harvest in full bloom?  When was the green bean harvest at full peak?  If your mother wants to have the annual family get together two states away when your tomatoes were begging to be picked last summer, you can choose a different variety that matures two weeks later this year.  If the green peppers freeze before producing two (or yes, four!) years in a row, you know to plant earlier or choose a variety more suited to your gardening zone.   

For the next chapter of the story, a journal helps  you  make plans for the future.  Include pictures or notes of things that inspire you.  Even if it is just one element in a garden scene, that element may be just what is needed to make your garden come alive next year.   Start to bring things to life by making those elements that you find attractive, a part of your garden goals.  Perhaps a hardscape, like a retaining wall, caught your eye.  Or a long term investment, like that exotic gingko tree.  Or maybe it is a colorful pot of pansies by the door in spring.  Planning gives one hope through the long winter and a jumpstart in spring! 

You can download your own copy of my 2013 Garden Journal here.  If you have any ideas of what you would like to see included in a future version that would make your gardening more fun and more productive, please let me know! 

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Create Private Space in Your Backyard

July 31, 2012 by

July flew by at Chez Charlene — almost literally, at times!  We added dorecho to our vocabulary as strong straight line winds took down trees and power lines for miles, while in other parts of the country people were coping with wildfires.       Here are Nine Checklists to Help Evacuate Your Home as many had to do.  Experiments  led to these recipes for Breakfast to Go and Mushroom Swiss Burgers , Friday nights gave us a family  favorite known as Chili Cups and our love of carrots led to this decadent, moist Spiced Pineapple Carrot Cake with its perfect complement of Cream Cheese Frosting.

Private garden nook

A while back, Wheels built a garden shed in the very northeast corner of the backyard.  It looked forlorn and lonely.  In short order, lilies that were taking over elsewhere were planted around the base to help tie it into the green landscape.  That did not  block the view from the house, clear across the back neighbor to whom the dog controlling fence belongs, their cul de sac, another  house in direct line and the street behind it.    Then one of our daily walks that spring showed we weren’t the only ones making changes.  A neighbor down the block had installed a new hot tub on the deck and removed a part of the privacy wall and its attached bench.  I asked if we could have it, the neighbor said sure and Wheels looked doubtful!   He and Bytes brought it home, though, and set it beside the shed, at right angles to the back.

Of course, the next step was to pave the area.  From the shed,  the ground sloped up gently to make an elongated mound along the back property line.  I leveled the area I intended to pave and installed a small retaining wall along the edge of the new patio area.  A layer of sand over the leveled earth and I began laying twelve inch square pavers.    In such a small area, it was fairly quick work.  I used a level on each paver to make sure it would set evenly, adding and removing sand as needed  The new patio extended from the bed of lilies to the new retaining wall, about five feet wide.  It’s about 10 feet long, the entire length of the shed.  That summer, we had half round planters fastened to the privacy wall and the shed wall.  A couple of suns from the sun face collection tied the area to the big deck where the rest of the collection hangs.

I planted autumn lace clematis that fall.  It is a fast growing vine, up to 25-30 feet a year and has small, sweet smelling blooms in early fall.   Every spring it needs to be trimmed back or it  takes over everything!  It insures a rich, lush green backdrop for the little patio.   From the kitchen window,   it gives us privacy the open fence does not.   Although, it has had a succession of furniture and accessories, the little patio was never really used.  Until this spring.

A tag sale advertised this beautiful bistro set and I claimed it (for way less than $100 — shhh!)!  The picture above was taken after a rain shower earlier this spring.  I threw a plastic cloth over the table and used it for a potting bench, a paint project elevator, and more.  Then we walked out one morning, breakfast in hand and decided it was a shady spot for breakfast.  It was!  And so peaceful.  Behind us was the splash of the neighbor’s fountain flowing into their koi pond and around was greenery and a seldom seen  view of our house with all the  plantings.  True, the chairs don’t invite a long lingering over coffee, but it is a cozy way to start days off!

Snail

Wheels and I spent our first year of marriage in Germany, living in a tiny apartment  near the Army base where he was stationed.   Coming from the Great Plains, snails were a novelty to us.  He plucked one off the gatepost one rainy day and brought it in.  We named him Egbert.  Egbert lived for a couple of months in the houseplant on the sill of our only window, moving  up or down the stem.  Until we spent a weekend in Paris.  The landlady removed Egbert (probably before we cleared the gate!) and delivered a stern scolding upon our return!   Alas — poor Egbert!  When I saw this figure in a local garden department, it called a name.  No, not mine.  Egberta,  Egbert’s blinged up sister!   And now you know the story of die schnecke who lives in the middle of our little bistro table!

Is there a corner of your garden where you can create a cozy spot?  Snails are optional.

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Flower Bed Before and After

June 29, 2012 by

Last fall, we had an ash tree removed between the house and the front door walk.   The retaining wall went behind and around the now gone tree, so I moved it forward next to the sidewalk.  Then we added dirt, more dirt and still more. . . ahem . . . fine soil.  (When we totalled  the cost,  it went from dirt to finest soil!)  Added plants. . . mostly collected from the markdown shelves at nearby nurseries.   Mulched — not my favorite kind, but it helps retain moisture.  That’s an important feature because it turned ninety the minute I put the last plant in the ground and is supposed to stay there till next week!   Still finessing the layout of the drip hose, so when that is done I’ll put down another layer of pine nugget mulch. It’s darker and easier to handle and makes a great background for flowers.

The idea is a full,  lush English cottagey type garden in the summer and boxwood foundation plantings  in the winter . . .  stay tuned!

Have a joyfilled weekend!

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Take time for you . . . .

June 14, 2012 by

Wheels’ work schedule includes 12 hours each on Saturday and Sunday, the days people normally get together with friends and family, go to movies and church, and relax.  If we aren’t careful our lives become nothing but work – work at work, work at home, all day every day and half the night.  We have to be intentional about building in time for rest and renewal, reflection and rejuvenation. Usually we get a few hours here and half a day there, our daily half hour walk.   When I saw a story in the local newspaper about an unusual garden tour, we decided to set aside that entire day for us – no phone, no computer, just leisurely taking in whatever the day would bring.

Breakfast with scrambled eggs, sauted mushrooms

A big breakfast started the day.  Yes, that is dessert!  Who said you can’t have dessert for breakfast on a special day?

We drove an hour and a half to our destination, through quiet country side dotted by small towns.  A beautiful day of sunshine and rare blue sky!  The GPS didn’t lead us through the town near our destination but surprisingly wound us through beautiful hills the “back way’. And then, we were there.  Seventy-five  acres of rare conifers, glorious art and beautiful landscaping tucked in amongst the rolling hills.  Mr and Mrs. Schnormeier, owners of the Jeld Wenn Company, open their private gardens near Gambier, Ohio to the public once a year, free.  The gardens   are  beautifully planned, meticulously executed and well worth the trip – even if you live further than an hour and a half!

It was truly a day of renewal . . . a sabbath.  Sabbath is often thought of as a religious tradition, but it actually is much more.  It is a time set aside for rest and relaxation, yes.  Everyone needs down time of some sort.  There are sound psychological reasons to stop our busyness, to slow down and change our activity.   We stop what we are doing to read a magazine, talk with a friend, check out our favorite blog, pin a few on pinterest (anybody ever actually do a few?).  If we work in solitude, we seek out other people; if we are talking to people all day, we seek solitude.  Weekends are often just a longer time frame allowing us to pursue different activities than we do otherwise, but we are never far from from being scheduled and “busy” and productive.    Still those kind of breaks are great.  They help us avoid burnout from daily life.

Less spoken of, is the fact that we  also need a time in which we stop producing and just enjoy that which has been created.  We all have a long to-do list on paper or scrolling in our heads.  Lay down the list, stop the scroll!  Savor what has been accomplished. Admire your handiwork – the pile of laundry folded, the bills paid, the sleeping children, the weeded garden.  Give yourself credit for what you have done.   Give credit to others in the family for what they have done.  Does wonders for everyone’s morale!

If we can check out of our own world completely for a while and celebrate life, the benefits are deeper.  Some do this with daily meditation, others with weekly worship.   We can also do this with a relaxation break – a cup of coffee and just staring into the garden, beautiful music that brings us pause.  Sometimes people plan entire vacations, to “just be alive” somewhere different. We may not have that luxury, but a bit here and there is entirely doable!   I hope you can find something near you this summer, that gives you the gift of renewal!  In the meantime, here is a mini break – four minutes of music and beautiful gardens to explore!  Take time for yourself, to renew your spirit and rejoice in beauty.  May it remind you to search for these moments, no matter how small,  in  your life!

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Watering bottle – a Pinterest trial

June 7, 2012 by

You’ve seen it pinned all over Pinterest, especially if you are a gardener.  I had it on my own “Brilliant” board for a while — brilliant as in “why didn’t I think of this!”  I love ideas that are slightly out of the box — and cheap!  This sounded perfect.   “It” is  a plastic milk jug with holes pierced in the cap to make a watering bottle.   The pictures showed a couple of different versions with water gently pouring through the pierced cap.  I went looking for the original source and found at least three possibilities — and then decided it didn’t matter who was first because they probably don’t want the “credit” for my experiment.

The blog I first saw associated with this pin didn’t have any directions.  But really how hard could it be?  I grabbed my trusty hammer and a smallish nail and got to work.

Surprisingly the milk jug cap was on the soft side.  If I just put the point of the nail through, the plastic sort of healed itself and came back together.  I shoved the nail into the holes then and wiggled it to get the openings shown above.

Full of hope, I filled the milk jug and stood by the newly planted pots full of impatiens.   I anticipated a gentle stream of water, soaking the pots evenly without damaging the plants or gouging a hole in the potting soil.  There was a spotty sprinkle.  I hoisted the back end a little higher.  The sprinkle stopped.  I assessed the situation and decided I must have been holding it wrong (Isn’t that a typical woman response — all MY fault!) So I tried again, even more gently tipping the bottle so the water flowed to the holey cap. It dribbled until the level of the water completely covered the cap.  Nothing. Impatiens was quickly translating into impatient me!

I tried a third time with the same results.  Okay, maybe the holes are wrong.  Took the cap off and looked to see if there was a way the holes would plug themselves.  Nope!  Even all the way around, no “flaps” to plug the holes.  All right!  It was hot and I had been gardening all day — tired and dirty and quickly moving to the crabby side of life!

Apparently once the holes were covered with water, a vacuum was created in the bottle and there was no air pressure to force the water out.  A bit of experimentation showed that trying to leave the top couple of holes open to allow air into the bottle was not going to get those pots watered this week! No place to pierce the bottle itself to balance the air pressure without creating a dribble hole.  So I squeezed.  That got results — for about 15 seconds.  A good squirt of water before the vacuum took over.  Set the bottle upright, air rushed back in and repeat the process.   Not the most efficient process.  Plus I ended up with this:

I’d say — don’t bother to try this at home!  Unless you use a more rigid bottle than a milk jug and can figure out how to overcome the vacuum issue.  Or maybe your pin had the secret key with it — if so, would you mind letting us in on the secret???

I do love Pinterest!   Love everything about it — even if a very few of the ideas don’t work for me.  In fact, come back Sunday afternoon.  I have something planned in conjunction with Busy Monday that involves Pinterest and you.  An experiment you won’t want to miss!

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Planting Your Raised Garden Bed Part 2 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

June 2, 2012 by

Continued from here . . . .

Part of the charm of square foot gardening is being able to better manage the quantity of each food produced in a small space. With three of us on erratic schedules eating from a garden, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with produce that needs to be eaten when it is ready to be harvested or it’s wasted.  “The plan” gave us an amount of food we could raise in a given area.  For example: Wheels likes radishes, I eat a few and I’m done for the year.  According to the plan we could grow 32 radishes in two square feet, and by planting a second time in a week or so, grow another 32.  In the meantime, where the first 32 radishes had been planted and harvested we’d plant another crop.   When things cooled down in the fall we could plant a third time in the first spot and grow another 32.  90 radishes for one person in spread out over a growing season sounded reasonable.

Let the record show – we are not gardening novices.  We both grew up knowing firsthand about vegetable gardens and our way around with the business ends of a hoe and a spade.  We’ve always had sizable flower gardens and dabbled in growing fruits and vegetables as time permitted.  Then there is Wheel’s grass farm.   (Try to sell lawn service at our house and you’ll hear oh! that’s a grass farm.)   A garden center is a very familiar place.

First we found a really cool watering system that just fit in the four foot square beds. On sale.  Marked way down from last season.  It’s made to go around a tree, but isn’t it just perfect here?

 

Then the seeds – you know seed tape would really be helpful.  We could cut it into one  foot pieces .  We didn’t notice until we got home that each package said in big letters “250 seeds”.  Or worse, “360 seeds”.  We did notice that a package of pea seeds had 100 dried peas – we only need a couple dozen.   Seeds don’t come in packages that small, so we purchased what was available, knowing the leftovers  probably would end up thrown away.   (I pretended I didn’t hear Mom Call’s  voice in my memory saying “waste not want not!”  And other such things.)   Next year:  Find someone to share seeds!

Then we went to the nursery area.  Hmmmm,  here are a couple of good looking tomatoes – an Early Girl and a Roma.  Okay, how about these two peppers over here. One square foot has been allotted to each.   And here is some lettuce already seeded and three inches high – red leaf, simpson and head.  They were on the plan – just in different quantities.  Oh and cabbage – we only planned for three and there are six in a pack.  Throw away three – are you kidding?!  That would be wasteful!!  (Mom’s best mom voice.)  And we wanted to try broccoli (or was it Brussels sprouts?) and there are six of those, also. And do you know how many onion sets are in a bunch?  Can you see where this is headed???

Onion sets

So we planted – more but mostly less, according to plan.  And we didn’t label anything – since we do know our way around a vegetable garden, you know.  unuh.   Now we don’t know which is Simpson or head lettuce (or how to harvest them).   And that broccoli (or is it Brussels Sprouts) is doing great!!!  Except that after “it”  was in the ground at three per square foot, we looked at the plan.   Both vegetables require one square foot PER PLANT.   I did an online search for the lettuce and how to harvest it.  We’re going to be surprised with Brussels Sprouts (or broccoli) and then we’ll figure out how to harvest.  Next year:  Refer to the plans as we plant!   Don’t buy plants that are unlabeled!  Save the labels and attach them to the plan!  Follow the plan!

In the meantime, we missed the second planting in the radish section because of rain – and it’s a good thing since some kind of bug likes radishes really well. They look gorgeous on the outside – not so good on the inside.  Wheels has had a half dozen really good radishes out of the two square feet we planted.  The rest went in the compost.  Next year: learn about radish pests.  Discard the whole crop at the first sign of problems.  Doesn’t get better!

But we’ve had THE BEST salads out of this corner for three weeks now and it looks like they are ready to give us a second harvest before it gets really hot.  That was totally worth it!!  Next year: We’ll do that again.

Watch for updates.  In the meantime – don’t sign that Master Gardener certificate just yet!

If you missed the first segments:  How to Build a Raised Garden Bed,  Soil for Your Raised Garden Bed,  Planting Your Raised Garden Bed Part 1

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Planting Your Raised Garden Bed – A Fistful of Seeds

June 1, 2012 by

Planting Your Raised Garden Bed

Wheels and I have been intrigued by the idea of square foot gardening for a long time.  With a very early spring, and a schedule that was a little more flexible than usual, we decided this was the year.  Wheels and Bytes built three raised garden beds here.  Bytes and friend filled them with organic soil, a mix of about 1/3 peat, 1/3 soil and 1/3 compost,  here.  And I got busy planning.

Square foot gardening requires about 80% less space and produces 5 times more than usual gardening. It uses less water, is all organic, and uses far fewer seeds than traditional gardening  The raised bed is divided into one foot square sections that house plants of various sizes.  We saw pictures that used string to mark the grid, but didn’t think that very weather worthy.  We decided to just mark out the squares in the dirt, on the theory that once the plants were in the ground they didn’t care about the grid.

If you want to grow a large plant like broccoli or cabbage, it  takes one entire square foot of that grid.  If you want to grow radishes, section that square foot into sixteen separate spaces, each one housing a single radish!   This was getting a little complicated.  I went online.  I looked at several interactive garden planners, then came back to the first one tried — Gardener’s Supply Company.  It’s fun to use – easy to change.  Drag that radish into a square and it populates it with the correct number.  Pop in a green pepper icon and it enlarges to fit the full square.   Best of all, you can print a copy to take with you!

I knew one of the four foot beds would be for herbs, like chives and basil. For the other two beds, we made a list of the vegetables we like and that should grow well in our zone. Nothing fancy or complicated.   Things like beans, peas, tomatoes, lettuce, kohlrabi and radishes for Wheels, cabbage, beets and green peppers.   We chose the ones we knew would grew in cooler weather to plant first, about six weeks before our frost free date.    Spring days were unusually warm but night temperatures were still on the cool side. After they were harvested and warmer weather arrived we would plant, summer crops.  And then in the fall when it began to cool down, we’d plant cool weather crops again.  Three harvests, one season of organic, fresh vegetables from our own garden.

That was the plan.

We made a trip to the garden center.

Our plan quickly began to fall apart.

To Be Continued . . . . here

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Raised Garden Bed Soil — A Few Bags More

May 18, 2012 by

Raised Garden Bed Soil -- why raised beds work

Here  is how we built our raised garden beds.  The next step is to add soil – a step which  provides major benefits for using raised beds.  The saga continues:

To fill the beds we had the choice of having soil delivered on the driveway and wheel barrowing it to the back lot line.  Or purchasing bagged soil.  For the relatively small quantity we needed, the cost factor was almost a tossup. And we didn’t build the boxes all at once so there would have been dirt in the driveway for a couple of weeks.    So Bytes and his bubbly friend Angle drove to the local general store.

I had figured the cubic yards of dirt necessary to fill each box.   Width times length times depth.   Start out by finding cubic feet.   Oops — the height is in inches – no problem!   Divide that number by 12.  In our case the height was 10 inches.  10 divided by 12 (inches in a foot) is .8 ft.  Each of the sides was four foot.  So 4 ft multiplied by 4 ft multiplied by .8 ft.  gives us 12.8 cubic feet.   To find cubic yards divide by 9 (3 feet x  3 feet x 3 feet).

Only they couldn’t find cubic yards OR feet marked on the bags.  Seems as though mulch comes that way.  Not dirt. In bags.  At the general store.  So they took a guess.  And made a second trip.

The soil they brought back was top quality garden soil, mixed with compost, manure and peat.   We ended up leaving a couple inches at the top to allow for working more compost into the mixture each year.  Most of the vegetables and herbs  we planned to plant were shallow rooted so six to eight inches was an adequate soil base.  (And it saved a third trip!)   Bytes and Angle spread the dirt evenly and were careful not to compact the planting beds by stepping on them.

A benefit in using raised beds is being able to improve your soil conditions and you can even grow plants in areas with extremely inhospitable soil.  If your garden is sandy or you have a lot of very heavy clay as ours does, it can be difficult to grow much in it.  By creating a raised bed, you can create your own soil mix or put  purchased soil mix into the frame.  Happy plants!!!

Because you are starting with fresh soil, weeds are also less  problem in a raised bed. Weed seeds in the existing soil are buried under far too much soil to sprout.  We also put down a layer of cardboard to discourage any weeds or other invasive plants that were in the existing ground.  As I mentioned before, the cardboard will eventually disintegrate and become part of the soil.  If any weeds do pop up, they are easier to spot in the raised bed.  They can be removed easily and quickly before they have a chance to spread or do other damage.

One of the biggest benefits is the ability to harvest more produce from the same space.  Raised bed gardens can actually double or even triple the amount of produce harvested from the space!  This is due to the fact that the square footage needed for pathways is reduced considerably, and more space can be devoted to the plants.  Next:  Adventures in Planting

Thanks, Angle, for your help!

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Spring and euphorbia graminea

May 11, 2012 by

Finally in gardening Zone 5B it’s time to plant annuals.  And that means spiffing up the front entry way.  A good sweeping of the walk and steps.  Look for the planting urns in the topsy turvy potting shed.  In the fall, things go into the potting shed very orderly– until after the first frost and then it becomes “add just one more thing” till the door scarcely shuts! Opening it in the spring is high adventure and moving the first few items is truly thrilling and may be even risky!  As soon as the pots came out into the sunshine, it was obvious a coat of paint was the first step.

While it was drying, I made my way to a nearby nursery.  Red geraniums in a hot pink cast were first.  Don’t usually have much luck with petunias, but the beautiful ruffles in the pink and purple kept drawing me back.  They didn’t look so bad with the hot pinky red geraniums, but didn’t really sing either.  Then I turned the corner and there it was.  Euphorbia  graminea Diamond Frost.  I added two pots of them to my cart.  And the arrangement sang!!

Euphorbia graminea was developed in 2005.  This year it is everywhere,  it’s airy white blossoms filling and spilling and blending arrangements of all kinds.  A visit to the website of  plant purveyor, Proven Winners, led to the discovery of Diamond Frost’s acceptance of all the accolades brought her way:

“I want to thank my parents, my breeder, and especially the millions of fans who have made me the Most Award Winning Plant in Proven Winners History. At my 2005 debut I was just a new, 12 -18 inch Proven Winners Euphorbia. I never imagined my career would last. I suppose its because of my annual nature (except in zones 10 11). At first, I thought you liked me solely for my incredible, continuously blooming clouds of airy white flowers. But as I grew in more containers and landscapes across North America, you praised my mounded habit, and how well I tolerate heat and drought. My versatility both as a single and in combinations. Others spoke of how easy I am to grow. In letters you wrote of my ability to stay beautiful without deadheading. And I was deeply touched by your appreciation of my deer resistance.

Without you, I would still be just another plant in the unforgiving world of commercial horticulture. If I could, I would keep you with me in the full to part shade forever.”

P.S. If you want to know what gardening zone you are in – click over to their home page and look on the left side bar.

The paint dried.  Plants were carefully arranged in the enriched potting soil and surrounded with rocks and Spanish moss to foil the squirrels who love to dig up potlings and drag them to another part of the yard.  The urns were carried to their summer post and positioned just right.  It took another week to find the right doormat to replace the worn one.  And there you have it . . .

 

Except if you look up.  We totally forgot to remove the greenery above the front door when the Christmas trim came down.  Don’t ask me how.  And when we realized it weeks later, a bird had already staked a claim.  So it remains until the little ones fly the nest.  In the meantime, do you think it would look better with a spring bow?  Perhaps pink or purple to tie into the petunia color?

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Build A Raised Garden Bed

April 25, 2012 by

The planets all aligned. Space that was formerly shady is now sunny. An early warm spring day begged for action. Plans were made. Saws found. Hopes ran high that finally we could have a garden that might produce more than a few random tomatoes. A garden in spite of heavy clay. We were going up – up – up! Up to !0 inches of black fertile soil, manure and compost. We built a raised garden bed. Not just one, but two and a third one is in the works.  Here’s how we did it — highlights version!


We measured the site earlier, deciding to leave the shrubs along the fence line. With more sun, they ought to do well and fill in the break in the sight line caused by the loss of four mature white pines on the neighbor’s side of the fence. Research told us that four feet is the optimum width for raised beds. Determining how long they should be took a little more planning. We used the hose and long handled tools to mark out the various sizes. Finally we chose two four foot by four foot boxes on each end with a trapezoid in the middle. This fit our curved site. And by making the one in the middle longer, we will be able to plant area that would be used for paths between smaller boxes.

One gorgeous sunny spring day, — quite out of season and highly unusual — Wheels and Bytes headed off to the home center. They purchased lumber that was 2 inches thick by 10 inches wide. We figured that 10 inches would give us the depth we needed to overcome the poor soil. No treated lumber as treatment chemicals could leach into the soil and contaminate the food. We did stain it to match the deck which will help preserve the wood and create a visual flow. They figured out the corner brackets, by looking at what was available and then deciding to manufacture their own to fit our size and reduce cost. We had the PVC pipe (left over from a puppet stage) and Bytes made the brackets to hold the trellis supports using pipe strap (plumber’s strap).

It took most of the day for purchasing, staining and making the two boxes. Once we had them in place we put cardboard across the bottom of the box. This serves as a weedstop. We’d already put a thick layer of leaves across the whole area last fall, so the one layer of cardboard should stop any weed seed that might have been in the ground.  The cardboard will eventually decompose.

Next – adventures in filling the boxes and beginning to plant. Stay tuned.

 

 

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