Jim,
I'll have close to 140 feet of four foot wide 'heaped' (unboxed) beds for tomatoes. Also some vertical tomato space is being developed. The raised box beds will be for veggies that grow 1-3 feet tall....peppers, celery, bush beans, etc. I worked this evening on two more raised bed boxes. Each box is 15 feet long x 2 feet wide and two boards high (about 12" high). The overall size of the garden is about 54' x 62'.
About 80% of the garlic I planted last October survived the screwy temperatures we experienced over the winter and is now about a foot tall. I planted potatoes about 10 days ago and they are now sprouting.
The garden must be fenced in to keep the rabbits out. There'll be a 3 foot wide planting bed along the fence line and the fence will be utilized for climbing plants......cucumbers, beans, peas, etc.
Where the garden is being expanded is established grass. Instead of rototilling all the grass up, I cut the 'planting rows' in and left 3 foot wide grass walkways inbetween. I had sand, compost(from leaves) & top soil(from grass clippings) to use to 'raise' the beds. With the grassy walkways I won't have dirt building up on the bottom of my shoes and won't compact the soil around the plants. And the walkways should be wide enough to use the walk-behind mower(less weeding
).
Yep, no rototilling. The new beds, I cut a trench around the perimeter of the bed and then covered the existing grass with newspaper, then 'raised' the bed (used tractor and FEL
to 'mix' & transport soil).
The plan is to have all the planting beds finished up, ready to plant this weekend along with the remainder of the fence installed.
Don
