It’s no fun working outside when the temps drop and the wind howls. But since we’ve been lucky so far with our winter weather (knock on wood), your Happy Homesteader has been out and about on the half acre doing some much needed work.
The latest project is all about revisiting the main garden beds up the hill near the top of the property. Those were the very first thing that went in when we moved here four years ago. This is how the beds looked then:
Since that first year, those beds have undergone several changes. Why not? Don’t we re-do stuff over and over again here on the homestead as we learn? Toldja that I would share all my mistakes with you so you would have hope for your own homesteads!
The wooden raised beds stuck out like a sore thumb with all the rustic beauty around us. Plus, they ran north to south which was the same direction as the slope of the hill. So the first change was to run them east to west. That took care of the erosion problems we had during heavy rains and I no longer had tons of produce sprouting up out of the south ends of each bed while the north ends were barren. The unsightly wooden boards also went away about that time and became new raised beds elsewhere on the property where the raw wood look wasn’t so overwhelming:
Next, I decided to “outline” the garden beds with long tree branches so I could plant right to the edges while getting that rustic look and feel that I love:
But after another growing season, it dawned on me that those five to seven inch diameter branches took up a whole lot of growing space. So, the next incarnation for the beds was to just have mounded dirt:
That’s actually a picture of the beds when I first started out with them running north to south. But my point? After three years, I was right back where I started from!!! Raised beds with no borders. But….
Now that we’re at the end of year four, I think I’ve finally got it. What can I say — I’m a slow learner!
The beds are still running east to west to control the erosion when we get heavy downpours, the wood that I’m using now are the original boards but they’ve aged nicely so they don’t stick out like sore thumbs and I’ve used them to terrace the garden beds on the slope. Best of all, I am back to getting more edge out of each bed so I can plant more veggies:
In addition, I moved almost all of my Handy Panel trellising to these garden beds so it looks better and it’s more organized for all the climbing veggies I grow — peas, beans, cucumbers and squash. I even made little half round planting areas at the end of each bed where I’ve planted some daffodil bulbs that a friend gifted me. I plan to transplant a few annual flowers and some bug-deterring herbs like lavender and basil when springtime rolls around. And as each bed is completed, I’m adding leaves, grass clippings or dead vines and covering each bed with a layer of cardboard to invite all the nice worms to winter over in the beds and compost all the nice litter for me.
All together there are seven beds in the main garden area and four of them are now completed the way they should have been all along. They’re all approximately sixteen feet long and anywhere from 24″ to 32″ wide. They all have full length trellising along the backs of the beds. So it turned out great — lots of edge, rustic looks and organized trellising. Hhmmmm…. I think maybe the Happy Homesteader is beginning to get the hang of it all. Naw…. I’m pretty sure there will be plenty more mistakes to come! Stay tuned and learn with me!
