With the recent heatwave we've been having in Iowa (it is THIRTY-THREE degrees outside as I type), I've been having literal dreams about gardening, and so reasonably decided that my first post should be dedicated to my first garden at our new place (also my first garden ever).
Our small yard was originally one of the selling points of the house for us (we're never outside anyways! less to mow!), but as soon as I started trying to find a sunny patch for a garden, I realized how little usable yard we actually have, considering the location of our giant shady trees and the neighbor's privacy fence. My sister gave me this book on square foot gardening, and I decided to build two 4x4 raised garden beds on the south side of our house.
Home Depot had these landscaping timbers on sale for something silly cheap, so I loaded up the cart (there's a special place in heaven for the guy in lumber who didn't bat an eye when I asked him to cut 8 of them in half for me so I could fit the 4-foot segments in my Hyundai Accent). When I got home, I realized I didn't have any six inch nails lying* around, so it was back to Home Depot.
Once I got home with my monster nails, I quickly discovered that my tiny pink hammer that I've had since college was not going to cut it (pound it?), so it was back to Home Depot for the third time, where I acquired this beautiful bad boy:
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| My first child |
I nailed two segments together to get the height I wanted, then nailed four of those two-piece segments together to make simple frame. If you're going to do this, I highly recommend assembling everything on-site, as those timbers get h-e-a-v-y once you start nailing them together.
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| "squash" trellis, with bebeh plants |
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| First bed, complete! |
I tilled the ground under the bed, getting all the grass out, then filled with a mixture of hummus, manure, and basic garden soil (I don't remember the exact ratios offhand, but it's easily googled if you care). I've been composting this winter, so I'm excited to have a little something extra for my plants next summer. The nice thing about using store-bought dirt was that, though expensive, I dealt with hardly any weeds all summer.
I also decided to try my hand at a squash trellis, to help my squash plants grow vertically - I used some old trim that we inherited with the house to get a basic structure together. I can't say it helped much with the squash, which ended up getting ripped out after being destroyed by awful, awful squash vine borers (awful), but it was great for the one tomato plant that ended up taking over the entire 16-square-foot bed.
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| Ugly bushes, after |
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| Ugly bushes, before |
The two beds were definitely good for a beginner's first summer garden, but I'm already dreaming of the holes I'm going to rip in our yard this summer to plant mooorrrree prooodduuuceee. We already had a few bushes ripped out last summer by an awesome friend and a chainsaw (thanks, Pam and Chris!). It's too bad I can't cut down a 100-year-old tree...
To close, I'll just leave you with a bunch of pictures of green things. Only 65 days until spring!
*There might have been a 10-minute discussion in my house on the proper usage of laying vs. lying. I'm still not sure I got it right. If I did, credit to this thread.
