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Although I love my house, it’s built on the top of a hill. Great for flood protection; not so great for gardening. And the entire yard is grass and moss (so much moss, so much sadness). Also, not great for gardening. The best option is to build a raised garden bed and terrace them on the slope. It’s a lot of work, but the pay off will be a much more fruitful garden. Eventually, I plan to have several raised beds along the east side the yard.

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Where to Build

I’ve been tracking the amount of the amount of sun my yard gets during the day. There are definitely areas where there is not a lot of sun. The area that gets the most sun has the sharpest slope. Lucky me! However, having full day sun is very important to raising a good crop of veggies, so that is where I’ll build. No point in doing the work for a minimum return.

The day before, I purchased a simple garden bed frame.  It’s not as expensive as some, but it will do a good job. I’ve purchased ones prior and they will last for several years. I had one that spent almost a week underwater in a flood and it was just fine for the following growing season. They are made of rough wood but can be painted to whatever color you want to be more decorative.

Raised Garden Bed Layout

Once I chose where to put the garden bed, I laid out the side wallboards of the raised bed to see where to start digging.  The sides are almost square with the property lines. It looks neat and worked just fine for the space. For the upper portion of the bed, I had to dig nearly 8″ in the ground. I found a lot of worms, which made the chickens very happy!

To make sure my digging was level, I got the level. Don’t try to eye-ball it. Trust me on this. It will work so much better if you use a level to make sure everything is, you know, level.

If you have a corner that isn’t quite level, you can dig deeper or use something to prop it up. I used the large clumps of mossy soil/grass. As long you have only one corner piece propped, your bed will be stable. Leveling is key. You need at least six inches (more is better) of soil, your bed will produce.

After I finished digging out the bed area, I covered bed floor with cardboard. I’m still fighting off a lot of weeds, wildflowers, and bushes from the longtime neglect of the yard. Experience has taught me how pernicious they are… it will be years before they’re totally tamed. After the cardboard, I put down landscaping cloth. This also acts as a weed block. (Pernicious!) Then came the dirt and the fun part! Planting the veggies! The zucchini and onions went in as starts. The peas went in as seeds.

There’s also one lone strawberry plant in there. In the past, I’ve not had much luck with them, so this is a test plant in the new micro-climate.

Deer Fencing

Evidence (poop!) says the deer are still treating the yard as their own pasture, so I’ve been putting up some “deer fencing” on anything they will eat. And by “anything”, I mean that they’ll eat just about anything.  Unfortunately, I only had a little bit left over from planting raspberries and lettuce the week before. No worries, though. I went through the burn pile and found flexible branches I had cut down last year when taming the overgrown areas and used them to weave a natural fence. Waste not, want not. *Edit: The branches only worked so well… more deer fencing had to be purchased! Coming out to decimated plants was such an attitude crusher.

What are you planting this year? What’s new to you?