The garden out back of our home has advanced with a few new boxes. We have had 4 boxes that are 4 foot by 8 foot for some time now . A couple of years back we put in a box that is 1 foot wide and the full length of the fence. (you can see it in the photo below).
On the other side of the fence is my older garden that had pea gravel all around the boxes. (see in the 4 photos below). I have found that as I get older, it is too difficult to weed that one. The space between the rows is too narrow to work with. My plan is to turn this one into a permanent flower garden that will take care of itself (perennials with lots of mulch and hopefully not a lot of weeding to do!). Right now it is full of weeds and needs a huge amount of time (not shown in the photos) so it will take about a full day to weed it and clean them up then plant some flowers this spring! these were the very first lined beds we did here on our farm.
Notice how young our fend is in the photos above!
Here is the second garden we did that was permanent beds/boxes. (see below)
We began with 3 boxes and added 3 more. Mowed the grass around them until finally putting down weed block and mulch over that. Then added a fence around them (to keep the deer out).
All of that took about 3 years to finish.
There are 6 boxes now in all. This was the first how it looked. 4 foot by 12 foot.
Then the next year we added the ground cover and mulch.
Now we have brick started in the very center of the 6 boxes going from the entry way to across between the 6. Each year we add more bricks (a little at a time as we can afford it). I wish we could find some of them for free but they are swiped up fast around here! You can see the grape vine in the far box, and berries in the other two. And rhubarb.
We have begun asparagus in one other box and plan to use the other two for various seasonal items. The posts that are taller are part of a arbor. (See photos below...)
We also fenced in this garden (as we are doing all of them) due to the deer population we have around here.
Here is our garden with new mulch down (the one behind our house). This is the one we grow most of our seasonal veggies in. (annuals). We are going to expand with one or two boxes this spring in this area. Notice the aging fence!
So now we need to plan what to plant. I have told you our plans for the others already, so in this one we plan to do the following. Two new arbors up going from the boxes to the fence. We will have climbing peas on one and pole beans on the other one.
On our new boxes we will also have a couple of arbors to support cucumbers.
we will also plant the following: bush beans, carrots, beets, cabbage, lettuce, basil, rosemary, tomatoes, zucchini, radishes, onions, stevia, marigolds, and maybe squeeze in a few more items. From these boxes we will use the produce to eat this summer. For canning we often purchase from a local farmer who raises organic items. I do not have the time to grow that much anymore and I want to support the small local farms/farmers.
I try to save my seeds but when I need to purchase some, I buy from bakers seeds. Most of the time I have good success but have had some not grow well.
This spring we will need to add new compost to our boxes as they are very depleted. We need to make them taller also but may wait a year or so as if we do not sell this mini farm, and chose to stay, we may build a new garage in this area and move the gardens behind the house to another area. Not sure yet!
