New Garden Bed

On Monday, I disclosed the looong laundry list of things we plan to plant this year.  Of course I have known for months just how lofty our 2013 goal would be, so about the same time the seeds catalogs arrived in the mail, I started planning new places to put those seeds as well.

Some things, like our potatoes, were easy to place because they get their own planters (if you can call a circle of covered wire a container), and some were fit into our raised garden bed from last year.  But even with those two huge areas I knew we'd need more space.  So I waited until Marco was out of town for work and I struck out to find us some more vegetable room.

I was/am mostly worried about our vegetables that grow "up."  Beans, peas, cucumbers, corn, these all need to grow up on a trellis (or each other in the case of corn/beans), and that could potentially cause a problem for our garden because it is on the southern most part of our property.  If tall plants such as corn or beans were planted at the "top" of the garden, they could shadow other plants and the other plants wouldn't get as much sun as they needed.  So I looked and looked for a wasted space with plenty of bright sunshine.

Bingo.

Actually, this is a during picture.  *Note to self, get better at taking true before pictures.*

Imagine this, the back of the house, full of junk and weeds and piles of clay.  Frankly, it didn't have too much going for it, except that it was a wasted space and it gets full sun all day- perfect for growing veggies that can be potted and trellised.

The area is actually about 4 feet deep at it's widest, and this section is roughly 18 feet long.  I had to create a "break" at that point to allow an opening for the crawl space door, but don't worry, I already have plenty of ideas for the other side too.

The process was fairly easy, I gathered up a few cardboard boxes that I cut into pieces and layed them along the area I wanted to make my new potted garden.  I quickly realized that the ground in this area was really unlevel and the cardboard was too thick.  So I removed parts of it, and laid out several (maybe 4 or 5) layers of newspaper instead. Then I started to arrange my pots to fill the space.

This was a great chance to figure out exactly what would go into each pot.  I tried to keep things that climb separated so that nothing would get too tangled.  Plus I wanted to make sure that nothing in the front would grow too high so I would be able to reach things in the back.  Add on top of that I wanted the planters to look nice and even, not too many "extra large" on one side and filling in the spaces with smaller planters too.  It took a little over three hours but eventually I got everything nice and settled in.

I have plants to go back and add mulch around all of the planters.  This will help break down the weeds under the newspaper and cardboard and be much more attractive than the newspaper as well...

Other perks of adding this new garden bed to the back yard?

It will cut down on the amount of lawn we have to mow- saving time and money.

It motivated me to clean up a part of the yard that was full of junk (wooden pallets, scrap wood, unused yard tools) and three foot weeds.

It will make sure that all of our potted plants get watered.  Potted plants need to be watered daily in our Mississippi heat and before, when they were scattered all over the yard, a few of them would get missed.  Now we know where all of the pots are and we can make sure they are watered each day while also saving time.

Gathering the potted plants in one place also clears up space in the yard/flower beds for a cleaner, more streamlined look and more flowers.

And finally, I get the satisfaction of knowing I helped find a place for all of my new seeds.

Don't forget, I set our family a goal of growing 750 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables this year, so finding room is a top priority.  I know this will help us get there, but if anyone else has any other ideas, I'd love to hear about them too.

Do you have a garden goal?  What's the heaviest produce you produce??