Side note: If you have ever dealt with st. augustine grass, then you can sympathize. It takes over! We had freshly laid sod of beautiful marathon grass when we moved in almost 10 years ago. We fought the good fight, but came to the realization that this carpet like slab of lawn is here to stay. Hey, it grows and it's green!
The lawn was one of the reasons, but not the only reason. When you build your raised garden bed you are able to fill it with a good quality organic planting mix instead of relying on the soil in your area.
The hub was on a mission. He wanted something functional, but also something pretty so the wifey would approve. He ordered beautiful cedar wood from The Home Depot. Not the cheapest option, but we knew we wanted this garden bed for years to come. So to us the investment was worth it.
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He did a beautiful job! I love the way it turned out. The hub has a type A personality, so straight lines and looking put together are his way! I tease him about it all of the time, but it's one of the many reasons why I love him...awww...ok, back on subject. The bed is 4' x 16' x 18"h.
We used Kellogg's organic patio plus soil from The Home Depot to fill the raised bed. We also added two forms of compost, Ecoscraps veggie based compost and Malibu Compost Bu's blend compost dairy based (cow manure). We also added Agrowinn minerals otherwise known as rock dust and John & Bob's Maximize. It adds good "bugs" that your soil needs. You can find all of these products at your local home improvement store or garden center. To start your garden, this formula is not super necessary. A good planting mix will work just fine and is worth the investment. My hub is just a garden nerd and enjoys this sort of thing.
The reason for adding all of these products is because you want to feed your soil, not your plants. It's hard to get into that frame of thinking, but it is very beneficial. When you feed your soil you don't need to feed your plants because the soil makes the food for your plants to grow healthy and happy!
We also used our homemade compost. We have a few systems that I will have to include in another post. Basically we use all of our scraps (old produce that doesn't get used, peels from fruits & veggies, etc...and we feed it to our WORMS! Scraps get fed to worms, worms poop, worm poop is used in our compost tea. Another way is our two part compost bin. And most recently our compost pile. Our compost piles and worms are fairly new...so we've had to buy bags of compost until our compost is able to catch up to our growing garden. It kind of takes time for it to go through it's process. Hence, why it is so expensive.
The bed is irrigated with Dig irrigation drip line. The drip line is hooked up to a timer and filter assembly which is attached to the water filter and pressure regulator. We also connected water filters to our hoses to water the garden by hand. These filters are skinny cylinders that you screw onto your hose. Very easy. Why so much filtering? Because you need to take the chlorine out of the water. Chlorine kills good "bugs". If you have any questions, just ask in the comments:)
Look at that sweet basil back there!!! Yes it gets that big! Love that stuff!
We put lots of winter greens in. We planted Swiss chard, spinach, ridiccio, collard greens, green cabbage, purple cabbage, purple and white kohlrabi (in the cabbage family) Tuscan kale, celery, parsley and 5-6 different varieties of lettuce. We planted a few marigold annuals in the bed as well. The marigolds attract good bugs into the garden.
In the back bed we added more tomatoes, more Swiss chard, kale, snow peas, sugar snap peas and arugula.
I have yet to sample more than 4 snow peas. The hub goes out to water the garden and kind of goes to town on them. I've caught him before...it was pretty funny :) I don't blame him though...they are delicious!
This is the garden's progress at just about 8 weeks. And that gigantic green blob back there to the right are the tomatoes that we are still getting! It's out of control! We are waiting to rip them out when the weather gets cooler. Tomatoes don't like the cold weather so they will stop producing soon.
This is the garden at 10 weeks, just taken today!
We have made delicious salads and greens in our sandwiches with our lettuces. We also made a delicious collard greens recipe! I will include it in a future post soon.
It is important to do your picking in the morning. If you wait too late in the day the lettuces tend to seep out a sap that causes the lettuce to taste bitter. The sweetest lettuce is picked first thing in the morning!
We noticed a few...actually a lot of aphids in our garden, just this week. My husband found a recipe for insecticidal soap that is completely organic. It is Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile soap (blue label is peppermint, it smells better) found at Target. It is a multi purpose organic soap. It can be used on pretty much anything from body to garden:)You will also need Neem oil, used as a safe insecticide/fungicide in the garden and a half gallon sprayer.
1 Tbs Castile soap
1 Tbs Neem Oil
Per half gallon of warm water.
Shake and spray
(add soap last before you mix so you don't get too much foam)
Spray crops in early morning or evening. The soap will be rinsed off at your next watering. Even if it doesn't completely rinse off, it won't hurt to eat it:)
When you are gardening organically remember to use products that are OMRI listed or certified. It will be marked on all organic products.
We are choosing to garden organically, but you can garden however you wish:)
We are still waiting on some of the crops to mature. We haven't been able to taste everything yet, but we are really excited for when that day comes!
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