Raised bed vegetable garden prep in about 1 hour

August 9th, 2011 | 22 comments |

Here’s a simple 5 step process which will take your garden from overgrown and wild to ready for raised bed vegetable planting in about an hour.

What you need:

  • A 4 foot by 4 foot area of garden (1.2 meters by 1.2 meters). If you have a built raised bed use that, but, if you don’t, any area of non-shaded garden ground will do.
  • Hands and feet – use gardening gloves if you prefer to keep your hands out of dirt, bugs, or spiky plants.
  • Lemonade, or other thirst-quenching beverage to taste.
  • A long-handled garden fork.
  • Compost (more on that later).
  • Seeds.

How to prepare your raised bed vegetable garden for planting in 1 hour

Step 1 – pull out annuals (5 minutes)

Starting with an overgrown area, your first task is to get in there and haul on whatever weeds and plants are choking up your garden.

Most annual weeds and vegetable plants which have gone to seed will pull right out, roots and all.

Grab the plants near the roots and pull. Don’t worry about plants which resist, just leave them to be taken care of in the next step.

When I worked on my own raised vegetable garden bed I pulled the whole 4 foot by 8 foot area in one go (it took me 10 minutes). It’s a quick way to make your garden look much better, which is a psychological boost.

The ground in my garden was brick hard after the hot July we’ve had here in Kansas. Still, the annuals came out just fine. The only things left behind were a few resistant carrots and turnips.

Step 2 – dig (30 minutes)

Once you’ve removed the annuals which were cluttering up your vegetable bed it’s time to get digging.

Before you dig, take off your square foot gardening grid, if you have one.

Use your long-handled gardening fork to break up the soil. As you fork the top few inches of soil you’ll loosen the resistant roots you left behind in Step 1.

If you don’t know how to use a garden fork here’s a helpful video on essential gardening tools which shows you the basics.

Remove any root crops at this point – carrots, turnips, beetroot, potatoes. Set these aside for cooking later. Mmmm… you can make a stew.

Step 3 – drink lemonade (5 minutes)

Digging over a garden is hard work. Stop and reward yourself with lemonade when you start to get hot or tired.

While you’re inside grab your planting plan from last time you put vegetables into this area. Miss this step out if you haven’t planted here before.

Grab your packets of seeds and start to mull over what you’ll be planting, while you enjoy your cool lemonade.

If you’ve not finished the forking, go back and break the clods of dirt up a bit further. You want most of the dirt lumps to be less than about 1 inch (2.5 cm) across when you are done.

There is no need to turn the soil. You’re just trying to break the lumps up small enough to allow your vegetable plant roots to penetrate (seedlings won’t grow well into hard-packed dirt).

Step 4 – add compost (10 minutes)

Add at least a couple of inches of compost to your raised bed. The compost goes on top (no need to dig it in). Any kind of compost will do.

I don’t have enough homemade compost to add to all of my vegetable beds. I’m using 40lb bags of compost from a local gardening company called Suburban Lawn and Garden. They make their own compost by recycling local garden waste.

If you’re using bagged compost you will need 1.5 – 2 of 40lb bags for a 4 foot by 4 foot garden area.

Spread the compost out on top of the soil then replace your square foot gardening grid (optional).

Step 5 – lay out seed packets (5 minutes)

Once your grid is in place, lay out your vegetable seed packets as you want to plant them.

Be sure to rotate your crops – plant each vegetable in a different spot from you used last time you planted (use your planting plan as a reminder). Crop rotation keeps down plant diseases and pests.

If you are ready to plant your seeds you can do so after this step, otherwise draw out a quick planting plan and take a note of where you want each vegetable crop to go. As soon as the weather is right you will be ready to go!

Clear up (5 minutes)

Remember to put your tools away. Move the weeds and plants you removed to your compost pile, or other means of disposal (do not add invasive weed seeds to your compost).

Take your lemonade glass, your written notes, and your seed packets back inside when you are done. Sit down and take a well-earned rest.

Are you planning a fall vegetable garden (it’s time)? If digging is a challenge consider hiring a neighborhood teen to do Step 2 for you and to haul your compost to your prepared bed.

Kid tip: everything takes just a bit longer when kids are helping. Double the time you allow – you’ll want to stop and watch bugs and it will be more fun if you’re not rushed.

August 9th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , | Category: garden | 22 comments

What to do in your August garden

August 2nd, 2011 | 12 comments |

Eupatorium coelestinum - mist flower - August rain garden

Are you tired of the summer yet? Wondering what to do in your garden in August, apart from sweat, or shed tears over your garden, as your plants burn to a crisp?

August is the time to prepare for a fabulous fall garden. Know what to plant in August and just take it slowly. By mid-August there will be some cooler mornings, if you haven’t had any already.

Vegetable and herb garden tasks for August

It’s time to clear out your veggie garden and get it ready for fall vegetable planting.

Vegetables to plant in early August are almost the same vegetables you could plant in July. By mid-August you can begin planting veggies which are more heat sensitive.

Vegetables to plant in August in Kansas (zone 5b): cabbage, carrots, broccoli, endive, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, radish, spinach, turnips, beets. Ask in the comments if you need help specific to your area.

Do check your local garden center for pre-started vegetables and for bargain herbs. Prune off herbs before planting them in your garden. Once they have settled in you’ll get new growth. Choose herbs which can be grown indoors to extend your gardening season.

Your nature garden in August

As the weather begins to cool just a little, it’s time to add more native plants to your nature garden. Native plant nurseries should still have a reasonable selection of plants available; if you wait until September you won’t get as much choice.

Most fall flowering native forbs are members of the eupatorium or aster family. Eupatoriums, like the mist flower pictured above, come in whites, pinks, and lilacs. Asters come in yellow, white, pink, and purple and include native sunflowers, daisies, thistles, goldenrods, and Jerusalem artichoke.

August is a wonderful time for insect watching in your nature garden. The first caterpillars of the season have turned to butterflies and there should be plenty of other pollinators to enjoy. Look for predatory wasps, iridescent flies, native bees, butterflies, and the praying mantis, which feeds on caterpillars and pollinators.

August garden maintenance

While many of your garden plants have been struggling with the heat, annual summer weeds have jumped in and taken over. It’s time to pull weeds up by the roots, or at least cut them down to prevent them seeding. You can add new plants to bare patches, or put down mulch. It’s a good time to sow a cover crop anywhere you don’t plan to plant until next spring.

Plants are still thirsty in the heat of August. Keep down the work of watering by restricting yourself to planting only as many plants as you can manage to water on a daily basis. I try to stick to one area which can be watered by sprinkler, or to the number of plants I can manage with one watering can worth of water. Know your limitations, or experiment and learn them.

How is your garden looking after the heat of summer? How can I help you prepare for fall?

Kid tip: as kids return to school it’s more important than ever that they have outdoor time. Teach them to find wild things in the garden and make sure they have room to roam with access to natural materials like large rocks, dirt piles, and sticks which are the best “toys” of all.

August 2nd, 2011 | Tags: , , , | Category: garden | 12 comments

Why it's OK to cry over your garden

July 26th, 2011 | 43 comments |

blue robin egg outside robin nest - parent sitting on nestThis morning my husband walked into the kitchen and found me standing with silent tears rolling down my cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” says he. “It’s my garden. I hate it! Here I am writing a gardening blog and I hate my garden. What am I going to do?” I replied.

When your garden makes you cry

Fortunately my husband is not prone to panic. He gave me a great big hug, which was just what I needed right then – a shoulder to cry on.

My tears soon dried up and I knew what to do. Life is full of ups and downs and gardens are no exception. I’m a firm believer in being sad when the time is right. But sometimes you just need to kick yourself in the butt. This was one of those times.

Why I had to kick myself in the garden shorts

Kansas has been in the grip of a summer heat bubble for a couple of weeks now – it’s been over 100F every day and it doesn’t cool down much at night. I’ve gone outside almost every day to water the plants on my deck, but I’ve still managed to lose quite a few. I’m not happy to have spent money on something which I let die. And weeds have taken over while I was cool indoors. I’ve watched the crab grass sprout on my front lawn; instead of growing tomatoes I’ve grown frustration.

My spring garden was pretty good this year. I especially enjoyed watching the baby birds. The robin pictured here raised two lusty babies, despite choosing a strange place to build her nest, and laying one egg totally outside the nest. But it’s been downhill from there. Unavoidable events conspired to stop me planting my summer veggies. I’ve spent more time mowing the lawn (my least favorite garden task) than anything else outdoors since the end of April.

How to take action in your garden

So, this morning all of my frustration just bubbled up. While part of me needed to be outside digging potatoes and pulling weeds my “poor me” would rather have stayed indoors and cried, moaning over the heat, and hugging every excuse I could find. As my friend Bethe Almeras says, it was time to “put on my big girl pants“. I simply told myself that I had to go outside.

No excuses. I applied insect repellent to stave off the mosquitoes and chiggers. I donned a cool vest. I grabbed and filled my water bottle, and I headed outside to suffer (if that was what it would take). Better to be outside baking in the heat than to be inside crying about not wanting to be outside! Sometimes you just have to make yourself do the right thing.

Problems are often less than we imagine

I’ll tell you right now, I have a pretty big imagination. While I imagined being miserable in the garden, in fact I was perfectly fine. I’ve been outside enough this year that my body knows how to react to the heat. What’s a little sweat when there’s the great outdoors to be explored? I pulled the flower heads off the crab grass in the front lawn, removing the immediate problem. I dug the potatoes and onions from my raised beds, and I watered all of the container plants on the back deck.

It’s still hot as H*** in my garden. There are still a ton of weeds. The plants which died are still dead. There are still no tomatoes or summer greens for me to enjoy. But I know I don’t need to hide from the heat and miss out on my Vitamin N. I cried my tears, then I did what I needed to do anyway. In my garden I watched a dragonfly dance, then I came indoors and enjoyed fresh garden potatoes and onions in my turkey stew for lunch. Mmmmm… life is good.

What are you putting off doing in your garden? Does putting things off make you feel even more miserable?

Kid tip: kids need to see adults enjoying the outdoors in all weather. While you need to be careful when the weather gets extreme you don’t need to lock yourself indoors.

July 26th, 2011 | Tags: | Category: Thoughts & Quotes | 43 comments
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