Saturday, August 2, 2008

Raised-Bed Gardens - A Simple Planting Plan

Now that you have found a sunny spot and built some raised beds with broad, workable walkways and great soil, it's time to think about a planting plan. Too may gardeners visit their local garden center without a plan in hand, and walk out with one of everything - and no room to fit them all in!

If you have constructed the nine-foot "four-square" from my last post, or you already have a raised-bed garden, you have lots of room to grow fresh vegetables, fruit, and cut flowers for your family's use - but you now need to spend a little bit of time doing your homework. There are several vegetables that we love to eat, but that we can't readily find at the grocery store. An example of this is the small, elongated Japanese eggplant called "Ichiban." We love it's smooth texture and sweet taste, but you can't find it at local grocery stores, so we we always include two or three of these pretty plants in our garden. On the other hand, while we love the way cabbage looks in the fall and winter in our gardens, cabbage is cheap and plentiful at the grocery - and easy to find. We forego planting cabbage - and stick to things that really make our efforts worthwhile.

If your family loves fresh beans, build a tall trellis (at least 4 feet) on the north edge of the north beds of your "four-square." Sink tall poles at the corners of each of the two raised beds, and secure them to the sides of the box. They will need to be sturdy enough to support the weight of heavy plants in spring and fall wind storms. Attach a growing mesh to the poles - this can be anything from heavy-duty pig wire (think "chicken wire on steroids) to a simple string trellis - we recommend the strongest, most permanent solution you can afford - this will be a very hard-working part of your garden!

You will rotate crops on the trellis throughout the year, providing beans in the spring and summer, indeterminant tomatoes in the summer and fall, and sweet peas (the flower and the vegetable, depending on your Hardiness Zone) in the winter and early spring. In front of the trellises, plant determinate tomatoes with tall plant stakes, eggplants, and peppers. Along the front of those two beds, add some flowering annuals and basil, which will help attract bees and other beneficial insects. Calendula, nasturtiums, and other edible flowers are good choices for the summer garden, but there are many others.

On the north side of the next two beds, plant a row of tall herbs such as fennel and dill. Moving south, add carrots, radishes, onions, beets, and other root crops - interspersing these plants when you put them in the ground allows you to pull the fastest-growing vegetables first, leaving room for the slower-growing, larger vegetables. In other words, the radishes will mature first, and you will pull them, then the small carrots (such as "Nantes) will mature, and you pull them. This leaves more room for the beets and onions to develop to their full size. Be careful when you pull, and try not to disturb neighboring root systems, as this results in deformed roots.

In front of these, add a few summer squash and zucchini, a pumpkin, or other trailing vine. Again - we look for unusual varieties of these vegetables, such as "8-Ball" zucchini, and Petite pain squashes - ones that are not common in the supermarket. Leave plenty of room for air circulation, and remember that it only takes one or two of these prolific vegetables to provide your family with all the squash and zucchini they want to eat.

You can add fruit trees to the mix by putting them in large containers (the operative word here is, "LARGE") and placing them at the corners of the garden. The Improved Meyer Lemon is a good choice for novice gardeners, and is very cold tolerant for a citrus plant. Read carefully about the growing requirements of stone fruit - many cannot tolerate our lack of winter chill, and won't break dormancy in the spring, rendering them, functionally - well, dead. Gulf Coast gardeners should forego cherries, many apples and pears (although not all), and apricots. Peaches grow well, but are prone to insect and disease infestations, and frankly, take a lot of time and money to produce an edible crop.

Finally, a word of caution: make sure as you build and expand your garden that you have a clean, easy-to-access water source close to your garden. If watering is a chore, you will put it off - and it's the one thing your plants will absolutely require of you. Raise beds operate more like large potted plants than like gardens in the ground - they drain very well, but the flip side of that is that you will need to water daily when your daytime temperatures are above 80 degrees. Make this chore as easy and enjoyable as you can.

Next time, more about crop rotation throughout the season in your new, raised-bed garden! Now, shut down the computer and get out there!

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