The Great Raised Bed Experiment of 2011

Yes indeed, finally another long overdue post.  Seems like whenever I have the great intention of keeping this blog up-to-date, I get side-railled and end up putting this on the back burner.

Being out of state for 11 weeks over the winter of 2010/2011 really put me behind schedule on essential tasks and projects around the farm. 

With the arrival of spring, I had to scramle to prepare things for this year's crop.  This included building 12 raised garden beds for our veggies.

The beds are constructed 100 percent of reclaimed solid oak planks.  The solid oak planks were salvaged from specialty pallets that were destined for the landfill.  These specialty pallets are made of 4"X4"skids and (2) 11/2"X6"X3' planks.  The pallets are extremely simple to break down and remove the nails.

The beds measured 3'X 6' and are 11 inches deep.

To fill the boxes I needed 18 square feet of composted soil for each of the 12 beds or 24 cubic yards of soil.

I visited a local dairy farm and scored a 6.5' X12' trailer full of pure cow manure.  The manure was hot when I picked it up, so I had to work it well and cool it down before putting it in the beds.

I lined the bottom of each box with newspaper then added a layer of about 2" of sawdust to each box.  Next, I added another six inches of cooled manure mixed with old compost to each box and watered it in real good.  After letting this settle for about a week, I topped off the boxes with another layer of compost mix and let this settle for another week.  I finally added two inches of premium potting soil and blended this with about 2 inches of the settled compost.

I built trellises from reclaimed wood to support the cucumbers and lima beans.  We plan to expand our raised beds by an additional 12 beds for next year's garden.

I have included the following links to assist in your personal research about raised bed gardening.  I can also recommend the following books to start or add to your gardening collection.



http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/factsheets/vegetables/raisedbeds.pdf

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/guides/E-560_raised_bed_garden.pdf

http://cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/713.pdf

http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/library/hort2/mf2134.pdf

It all starts with good seed

Fast forward to the middle of winter--The cold wind is howling and you just want to stay inside and relax. You warm up with some hot spiced cider and you thumb through the vegetable seed catalogs you ordered back in October.


As we continue to say, grocery prices will continue to rise and there is nothing better than home-grown produce.

This feature is primarily targeted towards the beginner gardener, but we hope any gardener can benefit from some of the information we will present.

As a beginner gardener, you will need to figure out exactly what you want to grow as soon as spring arrives next year. Sure, you can go down to your local super store or DIY center and pick up all kinds of seed, but do you really know what you are getting at this bargain price? Heck there are so many varieties out there and the package doesn’t adequately provide information on the seed you pick up from there colorful displays. Many of the seeds you can pick up in these stores are hybrid seed and some have been significantly mutated. We try to stay away from these seeds.

We prefer heritage or heirloom seeds. These are seed which have been passed down from generation to generation. These are typically high quality seeds. As you progress in your gardening adventures, you will learn to save seeds of your own once you have built your collection of heritage or heirloom seeds. You will be surprised how fast you can collect quality seed, save them for the following year and have plenty left to trade for other seeds.

Seed catalogs will provide some great information on the type of seed you desire to grow. Once you receive your seed catalogs, you will probably be a little overwhelmed and want to order much more than you need to start with. Talk to some experienced gardeners. Figure out what they grow and why they like a particular type of seed or plant. Just a note of caution here, if you ask 10 gardeners about a specific topic, you will most likely get 11 different answers.

We will be addressing specific vegetable garden planning in a later feature, but let’s keep our focus on how to get the ball rolling by ordering some seed catalogs. There are a variety of seed companies throughout the United States. We have taken the time to provide you a list of a few of these companies. Take a few moments to check out these websites and order a free catalog. We will remind you that once you are finished with these hard copies of catalogs to recycle them. Ideally, you may be able shred some of them for your composting operations. Besides the list provided below, use your favorite search engine to find many more. You may need to cut and paste these links into your browser.

http://www.seedsavers.org/CatalogRequest.aspx

http://www.victoryseeds.com/catalog/main_vegies.html

http://www.sustainableseedco.com

http://amishlandseeds.com/

http://www.ufseeds.com/

http://www.greenpeople.org/VegetableSeed.html

http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/links.htm

http://www.parkseed.com/gardening/MP/catalogrequest

http://www.gurneys.com



This list ought to get you started in the right direction. Once you order your catalogs, you will begin receiving them in the middle of winter. You will go to the mail box and pick up your catalog and immediately get a warm glow knowing that spring is just around the corner. You will also know that when winter is really bringing you down, you can pick up those seed catalogs and snap you out of that winter funk.

If you know of or find another quality link, please feel free to share it with everyone else.

As always, we appreciate your feedback on these free features. If you are reading this, you are fortunate enough to get this free information before someone talks into charging for it.

Look for future features on vegetable garden planning. We will also have specific features on how to get your seed started and when to start them once you do receive them.



Vegetable Gardening For Dummies


Survival Seeds Non-Hybrid 37 Varieties of Survival Vegetable Seeds Heirloom Seeds Non GMO Free Shipping!! Only $57.00

Getting our Hands Dirty

Thank God, I’m a Country Boy. Oh, yes, a few more days of great springtime weather on Our Little Farm.




Today, we got a lot accomplished in the garden. Lynne was busy in the morning with the cultivator and chewed up the grasses and weeds growing between the rows. We prepared more terrain for planting and got busy getting dirt under our fingernails.



We planted the second batch of our Ambrosia sweet corn. We planted six more rows in this batch which will ripen up one month after our first batch. We will plant the third and final planting in about three weeks.



We planted a row of crookneck(yellow) squash, a row of spaghetti squash, a row or zucchini, two rows of okra, a row of mustard greens, a row of turnip greens, a row of eggplant, a row of beets and two rows of carrots. We also transplanted 9 more Celebrity tomato plants.



As you can see we have been busy in the garden. Stay tuned for more updates from Our Little Farm.

Things are popping up everywhere

The photo above shows our potato crop as of today, 2 May 2010.  We planted these potatoes from seed potatoes on the 20th of March.  We mounded them for the final time and will wait until harvest time.  We also planted one extra row of Kennebec potatoes today.  These will be harvested after these plants flower.  These will be new potatoes, fresh from the garden.

Besides planting another row of potatoes, we had another busy day in the garden.  Of course, we did some weed control, but we also did some more planting.

One of the lessons we learned from last year was the need to stagger our plantings so that everything did not come in at once.  We planted two more rows of cucumbers for pickling.  If you have never had Lynne's Dill Pickles, you just don't know what you are missing.  These are so tart they about water your eyes and pucker your lips. And yes, I had one o her pickles from last year with lunch today.

Next we moved on to the Heritage Old Fashioned brown beans--3 more rows.  Planted 2 more rows of spinach.  We plan on adding more garden fresh salads to our daily menus.

Transplanted 9 Celebrity tomato plants.  It will be a couple of more weeks before we can transplant the Early Girls and Romas.

For those of you following this blog and are wanting to begin in vegetable gardening, we highly recommend you pick up some gardening books.  Our favorite veggie book is " The Vegetable Gardener's Bible".  We refer to this book on a daily basis.  I have provided the link for this book below.

Again, please feel free to ask questions or leave comments.