For a very long time now my hubby and I have been talking about expanding our garden so I can have more space to plant veggies. The problem has always been that our back yard is covered with very mature trees that make it impossible to plant as they shade everything and we were not about to cut them down. Our current garden is on the side of the house but there is not much space for it.
As you can see we only had 5 raised beds that we build 2 yrs ago and it didn't give me much of a space to plant everything I wanted originally. So we finally agreed that we need more space and he'll be building a new garden area for me - on the front of the house. Originally that area was not even in question as it's first thing that people see when they come over, but considering how little visitors we do have we just decided to go with it. It will be long and narrow to avoid leech field but it will be better than none. So he created design for me this weekend and already started gathering supplies. Hopefully it will look just as nice once it's completed.
I'll have to do some creating planting outside the fence to hide the structures and use vines like grapes, roses, jasmine to mask chicken wire fencing. I will also plant some herbs and landscaping greens to make it more of an island design afterwards and plant some colorful flowers like peonies and bulbs for spring, glads and hollyhock for taller varieties as well as some decorative pumpkins and squashes to fill the area on the bottom. Now this should keep me more than busy this spring and summer :)
Oh how exciting! The deign looks really great. Do you know what you're going to plant in the beds?
ReplyDeleteYes, I have a pretty good plan for it already. The right top side and right middle will be tomatoes and peppers; bottom right will be potatoes, beans, carrots, eggplant; the left middle will be onions, beets, cabbage, celery; the one on the very top left is for squashes, corn and beans; the one on the bottom left is for semi-shaded like salads, swiss chard, cabbage. The perimeter (narrow box around the garden) will be for strawberries, peas, pollbeans, sunflowers on the very back, cucumbers (using fencing as trelis). I will also have flowers like nasturtium and herbs outside the actual garden - think english cottage layout.
ReplyDeleteLove the design, not too far off from what I hope to have at our farm (but so far nature is not cooperating, ha). Anyway, i have a question, those raised beds you have do you know how tall they are? Are those 8" or 12"? I'm trying to decide what size. I lean toward 12" but alot of books say 8" is fine. I was thinking if there is no bottom, maybe they don't have to be 12" deep, but not sure...
ReplyDeleteThanks! Enjoy your blog!
My current beds are all 12" but the new design will be 10" in the middle and the rest 8". Because it's front lawn I don't want them to stand out too much so i'll be making them smaller in height but it should still be fine. I have both areas lined with chicken wire on the bottom but then it's regular ground underneath. So far I didn't have any issues with deep planting. Tomatoes might need more space but when I plant them I lay them on side so few inches of stem are under and form stronger roots. They seem to do well that way.
ReplyDeleteGood for you! My garden is in the front yard over our septic system as well. Our lawn was never wet before putting the garden in, and we have not any any trouble with it even though we are sometimes adding water to the area. Good luck with your expansion.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kelly, I was worried about chemicals leaking from septic so we moved it 6 feet from nearest edge. That and having raised boxes should help. Hopefully it's not going to be a problem.
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