Getting ready for spring

[Northernrose]

My husband built my my first two raised beds 8'x4' for my veggies next year. They are in an area that gets pretty much full sun and is a southern exposure.

I filled them native soil and mixed in several bags of "store bought" compost. I also added a little bit of brooder box bedding (shavings/poo), and old nest box bedding (grass hay/alfalfa/poo) from my chickens and a lot of leaf litter for mulch. The chickens have been scratching around and scattering the mulch and hay. I have to go back and rake it up again. We are going to leave the posts up to attach short sections of removable fence to protect each bed from the chickens
Eventually I want to add more raised beds of various sizes.

Trisha

 

[Warthog]

Well done, they look fantastic.

Now you have to decide what your first crops are going to be.

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

I want to try a raised bed. The lady who lived here had a playset with a sand box underneath it. Unfortunately I took it down. That would of made an awesome bed

 

[lesa]

They look fabulous! You are going to really be looking forward to spring. I started with two like that, they I put one in between and had three in a row...then I made a gigantic garden, that wasn't a raised bed. You see what happens don't you?? What are you planning on planting?

 

[Collector]

They look very nice and well built. I like the post idea to keep the chickens out. We have one raised bed, but it doesn't look as nice as yours, let's trade!

 

[Northernrose]

First tomatoes then peppers, green beans, squash, etc. what ever will fit I want to build more beds so I can rotate the crops every season to reduce disease. I don't want to plant tomatoes more than one year in the same bed. At my old place, I only had one 4 x 10 bed and planted tomatoes in it every year. I ended up with a very weird virus in the tomato plants after awhile

I can't wait for the tomatoes. No more growing them in 1/2 wine barrels. They did ok, but only the cherry tomatoes produced ok.


Trisha