How I Made 14, Four Foot By 12 Foot Garden Beds & Planted A Few Hundred Radish And Beet Seeds
Made 14, 4 foot by 12 foot garden beds just over a year ago. These were made in a lasagna garden style. Witch means to layering different materials on top of each other to make the beds.
Here is how I made them:
- Cut the grass very short
- Put a layer of cardboard on the grass
- Next was 2 inches of compost on the cardboard
- On the compost I put 4 inches of hay
- After the hay I put 2 inches of double ground wood chip mulch
The first year I companion planted corn, beans and sunflowers in the beds. After clearing the beds in fall added a few inches of leaf compost then mulched them with whole leafs that were raked up that fall. The beds sat over winter furthering the decomposition of the different materials.
While planting the Radish and Beet seeds in these garden beds today the ground was dark and fluffy with a lot of worms. The wood chips had turned into a rich soil. Lets look at how I planted the seeds.
First I made rows about one foot apart by moving the top layer aside and exposing the ground.
Made the rows with a good old Hoe.
After making the rows with the hoe I used my Hori Hori to dig a little bit deeper into the rich earth. Only about an inch deep.
There not perfectly straight but there isn't much in nature that is. LOL
Beets. Planted one seed about every two inches. In three week or so I'll thin them to about four inches apart.
Radish. I planted the seeds about one inch apart. In about three weeks I'll thin them to two to three inches apart.
After planting I pushed the soil and mulch back over the seeds. It was raining all day today again so I didn't need to water them in
I'll do an up date on there progress in two to three weeks.
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When you planted the corn, beans, and sunflowers the first year, did you have to cut holes in the cardboard to sow them, or did you put down the cardboard way ahead of time so it would be breaking down by planting time?
I cut a hole. The cardboard hadn't had enough time to brake down.
Looks great! Following for updates :)
Makes me excited for summer so I can get my garden in the ground.
Thank you @leemlaframboise! I'm sure you have some time before you can start being in Canada.😁
Yup, I have a few months yet to wait.
Excellent! Thanks for posting!
Thank you @homesteaderslife!😊
Interesting start. Looking forward to the updates on this :)
Rydhi
xox
Thank you @myscrible!!
Looks luscious. Good job on this. Hope you get some quality roots crops from these beds.
Thank you @mountainjewel! I Hope I do to! 😁
Awesome! I wish I had soil lol... I am doing my roots in bales this year I had talked to someone and they said they had great success with them... I'm giving it a go....
This is what I'm up against... and to top it off I'm on top of a ridge, so heavy rain = god soil goes into the hallow...
Thank you!! Are you able to put in a swale or some sort of burm to stop the good soil from washing away?
I have tried everything. I am now doing straw bale and Huglekultr as a water catch and mitigation. So far so good, but it will take me 2-5 years to build up enough to grow shallow. Ieven dug and cleaned the rocks from the top 6" (the big ones) but since there is so much clay it is next to impossible to keep it black. I can also get wood chips from the local dump for free which I use a lot of. It has been a huge learning experience since I have moved here.
It sounds like you've got some really good ideas. Just keep your head up and keep trying. Another suggestion that you just mentioned was hugelkultur Mounds. You can build those right on top of your rock
Yep! And in doing so I am adding tons of organic matter to the walkways as well, since it is a messy job :)
Looks great!
Never heard of lasagna garden style....must try it. Anything that is natural and recycled appeals to me. Whereabouts are you in the world?
I'm in the usa. North Western North Carolina to be exact. Zone 7B
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