Back in May when the garden was being assembled I cut a few corners in order to get it ready for planting as quickly as possible. Now that everything is growing it is apparent that something needs to be done in a couple areas to make it more usable.
One item which might be deferred until next year pending cost analysis is to surround the raised beds with a wooden frame of some sort. The beds are approx. 18 feet long and 3 feet wide. The problem is that the dirt is in an arc, with the thinnest part at the edges of the bed, so it doesn’t allow for full use of the width of the bed when planting larger plants — like tomatoes or eggplant or peppers.
If the beds can be framed in the depth of dirt will be even all the way across the bed and will help to maximize planting space. Plus it will just look neater.
The second issue is a little more pressing. The garden was assembled on a patch of lawn next to the workshop. The idea was to keep the walkways and non-bed portions of the garden neatly mowed all season. The REALITY is that the veggies are taking over the garden — literally! The Zucchini/Yellow Squash rows have grown together so the walkway between them is completely covered with huge leaves. The melon vines are just going everywhere. Even the darn cucumbers decided that my trellis was OK for a start, but now they have shot off vines going every which way BUT up.
On top of it the grass nearest the beds gets fertilized by the rich soil and grows greener and faster than the rest of the grass in the garden. And the mower doesn’t distinguish between grass and, say, a pepper plant… And Japanese Beetles apparently lay their eggs in grass (who knew?) and that is where their grubs grow up.
So bottom line is for the sake of the garden and my sanity drastic action needs to be taken.
The plan is to lay landscape fabric down covering all grass areas that I can currently access. On top of the fabric will go a layer of pea gravel or something similar. Hopefully the gravel will be cheap enough in bulk.
With the chaos of family moving it might take longer than a week to get this done.
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One fact is for certain; no matter how much you plan you can always find ways to improve your gardening facilities.