Photo of Paths
Part 6 in a series of posts about one method of easily building a vegetable garden.
Lay the Groundwork and Get it Done!
This is where the shovel hits the soil, so to speak. Preparing your garden site can take as little as a few minutes, or as long as a few hours depending on how you want to go about it.
Once the site is prepared you can start the process of making the raised beds. After that you will fence it all in if necessary.
To begin with, you should…
Clear the area. Remove any debris. Pull any large weeds. If the area is lawn you should mow it as low as your mower goes. If you want to kill all the grass with some sort of herbicide that is up to you — personally I don’t want a lot of chemicals in the same area my food grows in so I passed on this option.
Mark the borders. Using your garden design for reference mark the outline of the entire garden and each bed within the garden. You can use stakes or spray paint or string — whatever works best for you. The layout doesn’t have to be perfect to the inch — you just need it to be reasonably accurate so you know where everything goes.
One tip — if you are fencing the garden make sure that the fencelines are parallel and even with each other. You don’t want any gaps that will let critters inside!
Line the paths. If you are lining the pathways with landscape fabric you can place it now or wait until after the beds are constructed. If you are going to use gravel or mulch to line the paths it is better to wait until after the beds are built.
Border the beds. If you are going to use wood or timbers or something to border the raised beds go ahead and get them all set up now.
Construct the raised beds. See that huge pile of dirt? Grab a friend or ten and start shoveling! No need to till the ground first. No need to dig up the sod. Just start piling the dirt right on the ground/grass until you get the beds filled in to an even depth (6 or 8 inches usually).
I can already see the questions forming in your mind — Is it really OK to just pile the dirt on the ground? Shouldn’t we till it first? What about double-digging it 12 inches deep? Is he out of his mind?!? My answer is this: Meadowwood Garden was constructed in exactly this way. As I write this I have 8 foot tall tomato plants and 25 foot long gourd vines growing in 6 inch deep raised beds. In my opinion tilling or double-digging the ground under the raised bed isn’t necessary.
Finish up the pathways. If you are putting gravel or stone on top of the landscape fabric now is the time. Double-check and make sure that the beds and pathways are exactly the way you want them before you go to the next step.
Fence it all in. Starting at one corner pound in the fenceposts every 8 feet. Once all the fenceposts are in and everything is square attach the fence to the posts. Don’t forget to leave room for your gate.
Now stand back, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself. You have a vegetable garden!!!!
In the concluding post to this series we will talk about how to water your new garden, and where you can go from here.
