Garden Layout

[SweetMissDaisy]

Hi-
I’m working on the layout for the garden I want to put in. I am currently growing some veggies in flower beds and on the patio, because the deer help themselves to everything else that isn’t behind deer fencing, so I want to finally put in an official plot of raised beds. I’d like to keep it about 16x20, because we are going to have to fence it in. What do you think of this layout design... ? I would like to be able to get my wagon through the middle of the garden, but not it’s necessary to take it down every isle.

 

[digitS']

Blueberries in corner?

You will have to train cucumbers UP.

Tomatoes ... what do you think of 4 instead of 6? They will also need careful staking and paths for lower left bed may disappear.

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

Blueberries in corner?

You will have to train cucumbers UP.

Tomatoes ... what do you think of 4 instead of 6? They will also need careful staking and paths for lower left bed may disappear.

Steve

I have seen pics of her last tomato set up. AMAZING. No worries about a path getting lost.

 

[so lucky]

Just wondering if the 4x4 beds would work better placed against the fence, and a little narrower, so you can reach all the way across. That would give you room for another bed, or a wider bed right there in the middle. I grow cukes on the fence, which works pretty well for me.

 

[Carol Dee]

@SweetMissDaisy I like it. Looks manageable. All our raised beds are about 30 ft. long by 2 foot wide! With lanes wide enough for the riding mower.

 

[Carol Dee]

Just wondering if the 4x4 beds would work better placed against the fence, and a little narrower, so you can reach all the way across. That would give you room for another bed, or a wider bed right there in the middle. I grow cukes on the fence, which works pretty well for me.

Thinking with the deer if things are grown on the fence they will be able to snack on fruits that grow through.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What are you using to make your raised beds? If it is 8' lumber I like the use of 3x5 and 4x4, that's efficient use of materials. But due to the thickness of the material neither inside nor outside dimensions will be 3x5. I used 2x12's for mine and had to take the thickness of the lumber into account in the layout and maintain my spacing. If you are using cinder blocks, bricks, or something else fairly thick you might want to take that thickness into account. (If I could start over I'd use 2x8's. I was concerned about drainage and it's not as bad as I thought.)

You only left 1' between the fence and your two outside 3x5's. Is that enough for you to bend down and work in there?

I'll throw this out for discussion. What do people think of 2' between the beds? I used a minimum of three feet for mine. Depending on what you plant, how you stake them and how yo prune them, several things like tomatoes, black eyed peas, cucumbers, squash, or beans can spread outside the bed boundaries. Will 2' wide strips be enough for access? I haven't tried 2' wide strips so no experience with them. I see Carol doesn't think it's an issue. I think it easily could be.

Sweet Lady, how do plan to manage grass and weeds between the raised beds? Mowing, weed eating, mulch? Can you do that with 2' wide rows?

Are those veggie icons what you plan to plant in that specific bed each time or will you mix it up season to season or even succession planting in the same season? That might influence how you lay them out. If that is blueberries in the corner a 4' diameter circle is probably not big enough.

On your beds against the fence, will grass send roots under your beds and come up in them? Or will the grass suck moisture away. I like a boundary between the grass and the garden. In Arkansas I used the garden fence to trellis pole beans and cucumbers but that was not a raised bed garden. I mulched the outside of the garden fence as well as inside the fence due to grass. Deer didn't bother the cukes but they sometimes did the beans.

 

[ducks4you]

Let us know how it goes.

 

[flowerbug]

i dislike raised beds. here we have been consolidating gardens into larger spaces and they are much easier for us to maintain and i like the flexibility in layout/planting that the larger spaces allow. less wasted space to maintain (pathways gone or just between plantings as needed), fewer number of edges to weed along, less places for weeds to hide, etc. also less expensive over the longer haul (no need to replace things that break down).

the only reason we have raised beds here is for flash flooding and if i could bring in fill and remove all the remaining pathways i would. it is a lot of wasted space that i could be using to grow things instead...

i know some people like them because of it giving them easier access to gardens but i can raise dirt up and tamp down the edge (and mulch it if you get a lot of heavy rains) and that works just as well IMO.

good luck with your garden.

fence needs to be 6-8ft high to discourage deer (you can do things with sticks and moving strips of cloth and wire to make it look taller as an optical illusion).

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

Blueberries in corner?

You will have to train cucumbers UP.

Tomatoes ... what do you think of 4 instead of 6? They will also need careful staking and paths for lower left bed may disappear.

Steve

Hey Steve!
The blueberry in the corner was a thought for a single plant. I’ve not grown them here in WA, but when I was in Oregon, my neighbor had a single plant that did remarkably well. She had it as an accent plant in a flowerbed. It’s always been in the back of my mind as something to try. But, I’m open to other options in that area as well. I could easily see their being a single tomato there one year, giant sunflowers another, etc... really, just chewing ideas at this point.

I’m a superhero at trellising cucumbers, so no worries there. There will be supports for sure — i can’t be bothered w/ cucumbers left to run around the place!

My tomato plants don’t seem to get as monster sized here as they did in TX, so 2-3 plants in that amount of space seems doable. They are my favorite thing to grow, so I will probably still grow them up on the patio too.

I hope you and your sweetheart are doing well!
Nice weather we’ve been enjoying, eh?

SMD