Exciting! It’s finally time to put raised, food garden beds in the backyard of the Healthy Home Habitats Demonstration Gardens. These have been a long time coming. It took several years to accurately decide the best sun location, what type and style of raised bed, and what size would work best. This is a small yard, just like many of us have.
This HHH backyard needs to showcase the many, exciting, beautiful and productive uses that can happen on a residential lot. The beds need to grow yummy, nutritional vegetables for our family in a small space. As you’ve heard from me many times, growing vining vegetables is a great strategy for busy families with small yards. So the emphasis here is to plant in 20″ tall, 2′ x 4′ beds with terrific, rich soil, and then to grow up arched trellises as well. I’ll finally have a place for all of the compost I’ve created from five different types of compost bins I’ve been experimenting with over the past several years!
SUPPLIES:
*Gardener’s Supply Titan Squash Tunnels: I bought two last year on sale. So far so good though I’m hedging my bets growing early pea pods, then smaller cucumbers and finally, smaller pie pumpkins. Not sure that I would trust this trellis to hold multiple winter squashes. I love the shape and size. They worked great last year but I want better soil in raised beds for one and the other for a wonderful grape plant.
*Vevor Galvanized Raised Garden Beds – I’ve found wood raised beds to rot too quickly. This yard is too small for beds of painted concrete blocks. And many of the galvanized metal beds are crazy expensive. These, not so much. I’m stacking the 10”, 2′ x 4′ versions on top of each other to get 20” in height.
*Compost Soil – The youngest compost even grasses on the bottom with the oldest, most mature/finished compost next and finished vermicompost on top when the weather’s just a bit warmer (my red wiggler worms don’t want to leave their compost!) . The planters won’t be full this first year; they’ll settle quite a bit this season but that’s fine. This will leave room/depth for a new boost of nutrients from fall leaves and this year’s compost for next year’s vegetables!
So, here’s the start. Keep an eye to see how this project progresses…
Give a call to have HHH help you determine the best location, style, type and size raised bed for your yard as well! 603-313-9153. HHH is your source for ecological landscape, pollinator habitat, family garden and native garden designs, workshops & programs. We help you create more color, joy, health, wildlife habitat & ecosystem services at home!
