*This is a paid post. You may also stumble upon affiliate links in this post, and we may receive a small income if you purchase anything after clicking the link, at no extra cost to you! All opinions are of my own.
As with anything in life, ‘failing to plan, is planning to fail’.
I am not so much the ‘fly by the pants of the seat’ girl that some are. I like planners, note taking, and keeping things organized… so, of course I love planning out my garden. In this post, we will cover bed prep from construction to nutrition of soil, to choosing seeds and planning where they need to be planted! Okay, so let’s get started! Bed Space
Before you can prep the soil for your garden, we need to decide on a couple of things. First, we need to choose the best location for this garden- somewhere sunny, and honestly, close to water. Then we need to think about raised beds or in a ground garden.
There are positives and negatives to each. A ground garden tends to get better irrigation. However, a ground garden can be tough on our bodies, and if you don’t have a tiller, or know someone that can work that ground for you, you're out of luck! Those are a few reasons we decided on raised beds. That, and they are very visually appealing to me! You see, we live in a historic town in Georgia, and most of the homes in the city have raised beds, and it just looks so, so good! Creating raised beds is actually really easy. I will include a list of tools we used below: - Cedar Boards. We used cedar boards as they are the best for vegetable gardens, if you plan to only have flowering plants, you can get away with another type. The quantity of boards needed will be determined on the amount of beds you are creating and how tall they are going to be! Keep in mind when building height on your beds, you also have to fill them with dirt! - Outdoor Screws or Nails. My husband used nails, as he has a nail, gun. So, it was just a quick “pew, pew, pew” and the beds were done! - Cedar Steaks. Once again, the quantity of this will depend on how many boxes you are doing, you will need four- six per box. We steaked them down in each corner, and then secured the boxes to the steaks for extra security and stability. We did six, to stabilize the boxes length wise. Dirt is heavy. - Saw. You will need a saw to cut down the length of your wood, to create the perfect size boxes. A panel saw is very safe and great if you are life us, and will be using a saw on many projects around the house (or even business). There is a company called Saw Trax, who sell panel saw kits, other saws and accessories. Saw Trax has options for heavy duty industrial to home shops, so they have something we can all use, and are happy to help you find what works best for you and your projects! -Hammer/nail gun/drill Your Soil
There are so many tips on prepping your soil, we could talk about that for days.
If you went with raised beds, you can fill them with a mixture of soil. I suggest using Organic garden soil and adding in some compost of type. Composting can get messy, so the great thing is, we can purchase it at our local home improvement stores, or if you live in a farming community, you may even be able to purchase from other farms. Honestly, composting probably needs it’s own post, there is just so much ‘stinkin’ information- pun intended! Here is a compost I am hoping to give a try this year, because as long as I have lived on this property, I don’t think I have ever seen a worm. Worms are crucial to the natural composting process. Seed and Plants
Okay, finally, my absolute favorite part of gardening- planning the produce!
Plant foods that your family will eat. Don’t waste space, time and money on tomatoes if your family can’t stand tomatoes! Take the list of vegetables you want to plant, and consider which of these veggies or herbs work together in foods. That is typically how you want to plant them. For example, I like to plant my cilantro near my tomatoes, bugs don’t love cilantro, but tomatoes do. And I love the two together in salsa! They compliment each other, the cilantro makes the tomatoes “meatier” they say! Where do we find seeds? Local home improvement stores, farmers markets, and so much more. My grandfather pulls seeds from his harvest every year, and uses those! I am ordering this kit this year, it comes with a huge variety of heirloom seeds. We love heirloom everything! Our planting list this year: tomatoes, peppers, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra, green beans, cilantro, squash and zucchini! YUM!!
4 Comments
3/20/2020 09:57:27 am
Thank you so much for sharing these tips on gardening! We are hoping to start one this summer, so I will be saving this for later!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
About AmyHey Ya'll! My name is Amy, I am a girl mom (times two), married to one of my favorite guys, a daughter, a Jesus follower and so much more. I love preworkout and a great sweat, I collect books like trophies, I love to cook but hate a dirty kitchen. I love grungy country music, bell bottom pants, turquoise (the mineral) and converses. Our house is full of love and laughter as we navigate this busy life together, focusing on keeping the important parts of life the biggest parts, and building a healthy and safe place in our family of four! |