Creative Gardening

[Ashley Housing]

Years ago, I planted a huge raised bed garden after reading a book called lasagna gardening. You basically layer organic materials like peat moss, grass clippings, compost, more peat moss........ you get the idea, like when you'd make a pan of lasagna you'd layer your ingredients. Well, My hubby's grandma ended up with a dozen cherry tomato plants from the FFA for free and just brought me over 6 of them. So, I need to get my garden in! Only problem is, I don't have the biggest back yard, and my soil isn't prepared. Problem solved, I'm going to use one of my big sawdust/ bark areas (flower bed) and do a raised bed with the lasagna garden method. I know it'll do awesome, because last time I had produce coming outta my ears!! Here's the link I found to refresh my memory on the process.
lasagna garden

[Ashley Housing]

Anyone else starting their gardens yet? What are you planting? What method do you use? What zone are you for flowers?

I know I'll do tomatoes and zucchini and some herbs like basil and cilantro. I'm not sure what else I have already. I think I bought some lettuce and my mom mailed me packages of her left over seeds from what she planted up in Tri-cities WA. So, I'll have to look through her packets again and start planning my garden. I'd better get to the hardware store for some boards to make my raised bed.

[Ashley Housing]

Okay, After an afternoon of shopping, we went to ace hardware (this town's only hardware store) to buy this old big 20 foot long 2"x12" board to cut and build the sides of our raised bed $9. Then, we went to WAl-Mart and bought 2 big bales of peatmoss and 2 smaller sized bags of steer manure to layer in the raised bed along with grass clippings. Then, we were on our way home when we say a sign for plants on a farm, we bought some flowers and a Jalapeno and a beefsteak tomato. Here are the photos of our family event. The kids had so much fun helping out and, next weekend we;ll build a second raised bed to plant the zucchini and potatoes and onions. Today, I planted hood strawberries, tomatoes, pepper, lettuce (butter crunch and romaine), cucumber and basil and cilantro. That's a lot for such a tiny garden!! I might be moving some of it when it starts to take off, but for now at least I have them started. So, isn't ANYONE else interested in gardening?? It's cr8tv too! LOL!!
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[eddy]

Good for you! I love gardening also! I've been using those great big plastic tubs with the rope handles for the last couple of years so I could at least have peppers and tomatoes. I've had some herbs in containers for years also. I have a big yard but it's pretty much like a pasture! I broke a potato fork trying to dig up an area! No joke! I'd do the raised beds if I thought I was going to stay here long enough to make it worthwhile. As it is, the farmers market will have to do.

Hope to see more pics throughout the summer of how your garden grows!!

[Ashley Housing]

Thanks Eddy!! Wow, that's some hard soil you've got there! But, Farmers markets are always fun :o)

I'll be sure to take more pics as my garden grows and post it here :o)

[Kelly B]

Loved your slide show of you starting your raised bed. So cute of the kids helping. Loved the pic of them with their feet in the pool. That garden is going to be amazing. Can't wait to see the after pics. In our last house we did raised flower beds and terraced them. Then I probably had 20 pots with flowers and herbs on the deck. We had so much we couldn't keep up. We are moving to our cabin soon and it isn't landscaped per say so I am putting all the pots on the deck. I'd like to do different lettuces, tomatoes, some herbs like cilantro, basil, oregano, thyme and for the rest not sure. Do you know anything that does really well in pots? I want to try some organic potting soil too. Should I add peat moss and steer manure to the soil? Hopefully inbetween moving this month I will be able to fit it in before the season goes to far. This picture is of our deck at old house last year. One year I just planted all white flowers and loved it. Kinda Zen looking.
Good luck with that garden.

[Ashley Housing]

Good pictures Kelly B.!! I think tomatoes or potatoes would work good in big pots. Eddy had a good idea with those big plastic tubs with the rope handles on them. You could always paint the outsides of them decoratively. I'd go ahead and add peat moss to your soil at least, it seems to hold the moisture well. I have a ton of white flowering bushes out front. They were already planted when we moved in. I think some are mexican orange bushes and then, I planted a white bleeding heart by the front walk way on Saturday.

[eddy]

It's me again! Just wanted to add that if you do use those big tubs, use about a 1/2" or 3/4" drill bit and make some holes in the bottom so that they drain well and your soil doesn't sour. I made a couple of rows around the bottom and spaced the holes 5 or 6" apart. Plus I put a layer of fist sized rocks and then gravel on top of that, that bottom layer of the two ended up about 4 or 5" deep. Then you don't lose all of your soil out the holes and it drains better! I bought those humongus bales of potting soil since I didn't have any good soil or compost here. Plus with a good brand it stays "fluffy" and doesn't turn into a tub sized rock like regular dirt out of a garden would in a container.

Peppers, either bell or any hot variety does real well in containers. And you don't need to use the great big ones, I had them in those Rubbermaid type that were about 18 or 20" across the top. I even used 12" pots for some of the hot peppers. I had a Habanero in a pot for like 7 years! I'd bring it inside every fall, it'd lose a lot of leaves when I first brought it in but then grow them back! I had it under grow lights while inside. It had 2 batches of peppers each year. If we hadn't had the ice storm this winter and lost heat for 4 days, I'd still have it.

Bush type squash will do okay in big tubs but they spread out several feet so you need a lot of room around them!

Now I'm wanting to go for it again! I didn't the last two summers because I was driving to another town to work and it was too hard to keep them all watered. Our summer's get pretty hot and there's usually a wind that dries them out pretty fast.

[Kelly B]

Thanks Girls for your suggestions! Well I've got the potting soil. That's a start! Hopefully I will have a say soon to go plant hunting and planting. It has been dreary weather here lately anyway. Just rain rain rain!!

[Linda F.]

Wow! Great idea! I really need to get my plants. I have a raised bed, but it is all flowers. I have some physical problems which prevents me from doing a lot of gardening, so this year's veggies will be on the porch. I'm planning a bush tomato or two, a pepper and maybe some lettuce (which I'm sure will end up bunny food!).
I did ask DH if he wanted to put in another raised bed for me and he said if I got the stuff he'd do it. maybe I will...hmmm...

[eddy]

Those raised beds sure make it a lot easier! I had one made of real old railroad ties that was about 5 ft. square. I could sit around the edge and reach the middle from any side. Of course it was just for flowers, you wouldn't want to plant anything edible because of the creosote.

[Ashley Housing]

Yes, I saw something on the news the other night about raised beds and what NOT to use as your boarder because you don't want it leaching into your vegetables! I hadn't even thought of that, but thankfully the board my hubby bought ISN'T pressure treated! He said he already knew all that.... at least one of us is smart. LOL!!

[Marilynne]

Years ago Sunset magazine did a test study on railroad ties to see if they leached anything dangerous. They found that the old ones were safe to use. We have used railroad ties for our raised beds (veggies) for years, and with the execption of the kid with 2 heads, we are all fine. I also use old galvanized sheep troughs and cattle troughs for lettuce and scallions and herbs, they make great planters once you have them filled with gravel and good soil. It is so much easier to contain your fertilizer and other additives in a raised bed. It doesn't seem to leach away like it does in a big garden, and you can plant so much earlier because it warms up and dries out faster than the ground...this is important here in the Northwest.