The Home Depot was a super fun partner in this series of posts, they provided most of the materials for our garden and as always my thoughts and opinions were 100% my own! Now that our little garden is on it’s way to growing and yielding some pretty awesome veggies and fruits…I’ve had some time to reflect. My biggest revelation is: I will no longer let outside DIY projects intimidate me! After doing my research on The Home Depot Garden Club’s website, which broke the entire project down step by step…I realized that creating my own garden wasn’t as overwhelming as I first thought. Honestly, the only difficult part of this task was loading the 16 bags of topsoil into my car…and that’s what Hubby was for. 😉 So my tip is to make sure you have someone who can lift heavy things or a Home Depot associate that will be kind enough to help you load your vehicle! One other tip is be prepared to take most of the day to put together your raised garden bed. If you’re making a smaller edible container garden in planters or pots, it won’t take as long! The best part of the project has yet to happen: being able to eat what grows! This is going to require some patience…but it’ll happen and Mabel and I are going to show those strawberries who’s boss! And now that Hubby and I have this DIY project under our belts, we’ve been inspired to get more done! We got motivated to put our porch swing up (after sitting on the porch floor for months)!
We are planning on staining our deck! It needs to be done desperately! And we’re going to move our raspberry plant into its own pot, therefore making another edible raspberry container garden. Sweet! It’s going to be placed on our deck where it will get lots of sun.
I really hope that this series of posts have motivated you to try creating your own container garden or raised garden bed! It really is pretty simple and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of fresh vegetables to cook with and fruit to enjoy over the summer!
If you plan on growing a garden, what are you planning on planting? Any special recipes or dishes you plan on making with your harvest?
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Watch out for those raspberry plants, they can really take over! Love the porch swing. My garden is started in a cold frame — this year I am planting from seeds and I ordered from an heirloom catalog, and the seedlings are just starting to come up. It’s still too early in Colorado to plant. We are in USDA Zone 5-B.
Looks like you’re going to have a bumper crop! Enjoy your garden — it’s such a pleasure, isn’t it?
You are supposed to pick off all the strawberry blossoms the first year so no berries form, this encourages it to put out runners and a big crop the next year. They need a lot of room to spread.
About the raised bed, I have found you need to put a plank to walk on across the center of each bed and plant around it as you will be frustrated not being able to get into the center of the garden. You can also add vertical posts to 2 corners and string netting for vertical trellising across it to grow things up that will vine so you can save space. You can do cucumbers, some squash and of course peas and beans among other things.
I live in a nearby state and it varies by locale, but it is very difficult to get cucumbers or squash family vegetables very far before the cucumber beetles and squash bugs spread fungus to them and they wilt overnight, I have given up growing them. One thing that does REALLY well and is super easy are sweet potatoes. Sometimes they sell slips at Lowes, not sure about Home Depot, they do spread vines really far but are very productive. This year I ordered from Burpee, they seem to have the best plants and shipping containers so everything arrives in good condition.
Another tip is planting things far enough apart – especially squash which grows huge (a minimum of 3 ft across for one plant) When they are little it’s easy to just stick them close but they need air circulation to help the leaves dry so they aren’t so open for fungus.
Only use organic fertilizers and soil amendments. I prefer no animal products in any of it, but I’m ok with fish. All dried blood (nitrogen source), bone meal and manure is from cattle or chickens and these animals are raised in filth and full of e-coli and salmonella, so I don’t want to take a chance and bring anything in…in the old days things were different, but now you can’t be too careful. The one I use and it’s the only one I’ve been able to find that I trust and it works well is called Dr. Earth Organic tomato vegetable and herb fertilizer. This year I got it on Amazon as the store closed that used to carry it locally. For a liquid drench once a month or so, I like Neptune’s Harvest Fish and seaweed fertilizer combo. Other things I have added to soil are Neptune’s Harvest Crab Shells for added calcium and Magnesium and Azomite (glacial rock dust) for trace minerals. These things are important when setting up the garden as they will slowly decompose over time.
Potassium that is readily available is super important because it is lacking in soil naturally and leaches out quickly. Sweet potatoes will be tasteless without it. Since potassium is just a natural element, I do use one source that is not officially organic – and I have used one that is – the one that isn’t is Sulfate of Potash is a naturally-occurring, mined mineral. I buy Espoma Potash (note: Phosphorus is not the same as potassium/potash). Greensand is a natural source of potassium, but it takes years to break down and will not nourish the plants for many years so don’t buy that and leave out a quick release source. The only other source of potassium I have used which is certified organic is Biolink organic Potassium Fertilizer Liquid. I order from 7 Springs Farm in VA because it is close-ish to me and the shipping for heavy things is not so much. I have not seen Biolink in stores. I also get the Azomite powder from 7 Springs.
For fungus prevention on cukes and squash get something with neem oil in it and get something to spray for squash bugs that is organic. Johnny’s Selected seeds has a good selection of organic pest control products. You can keep netting around your squash plants till they are ready for pollination, but usually as soon as you uncover them, the striped or spotted yellow cucumber beetles will “pollinate” the flowers for you – and inject disease too. Very frustrating. I’d give anything to get a cucumber from my garden!
I bought a raised bed/covered tall-ish garden that lets you have insect netting to keep bugs out but let water and air in, you can also cover with plastic to adjust for cold weather and I have grown in it in winter with a space heater stuck in it. It’s called a Grow Camp. I like it because it’s high and I don’t have to bend far. You can see it here: http://growcamp.com/details-usa?mid=3®ion=151®ion2=157
And don’t forget to start a compost pile – alternate shredded leaves with your summer grass clippings (assuming you use no poisons on the lawn) and vegetable kitchen scraps (peelings etc) in either a compost tumbler or other container that will be closed enough to heat up and start the composting process for you (lots of info online). This will turn into a rich dark crumbly soil and is the safest and best way to condition and add nutrients naturally to your soil. Since leaves and grass don’t come at the same time, rake your leaves in the fall, shred them with a lawnmower, get 5-6 garbage cans and fill them with leaves, covered and save until summer so you can layer the fresh grass with the leaves. You need both for it to heat up and work. Don’t buy the stuff at the stores – you have no idea what’s really in it. My raised beds are all started with ph adjusted Peat Moss (called Pro Mix, sterile and soil-less) so I am not bringing any fungus or other disease in with it. I then add the compost I make and organic fertilizers. It’s very soft and carrots and other root vegetable have no trouble growing in it. Plain top soil is usually too heavy for a small garden and it packs down and suffocates things.
Good luck! From an organic Gardener of 40+ years!
I have found that there are so many resources and videos from the retailers and on YouTube that you can do and make just about anything these days. Your gardening project is an inspiration to others who are thinking about it. Good luck with it.