Showing posts with label raised beds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raised beds. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

new beginnings in our new garden!


yay! welcome to another year of tend! i am over the moon at the opportunity to share this space once again with this amazing group of women & with you

since my last post, we have moved (again!), built a garden & more! as i always say, i believe you can grow food wherever you are. with each garden, we learn a bit more & have the opportunity to make big changes. it's an exciting adventure each season!

today, i want to take you on a little tour of the humble beginnings of our garden this spring season! 


we chose to use what we had on hand & grow most of our food in raised beds. we have serious issues with bermuda grass in this part of the country so it makes managing weeds very difficult unless there is a weed barrier. 

luke is experimenting with double-dug, bio-intensive beds in our backyard. i am skeptical, but i love that he is always challenging my ideas & trying new things! more on that soon...


we also created two raised beds - one for medicinal herbs & another for culinary herbs - right outside our door for ease of harvesting & preparing meals. we are also establishing a blackberry patch in our front yard, a first for us in our home garden.



there are many fruits and vegetables growing in our garden right now. carrots are beginning to germinate & newly sown radishes are making an appearance. kale is slowly maturing, swiss chard is almost ready for harvesting, the lettuce is growing more each day & our beets are enjoying the nice drizzle that each spring day brings. every time i step outside, i swear our garlic has grown at least a foot. the strawberry patch, transplanted from our previous garden, is settling in nicely to it's new home. 


we are still waiting patiently. we are waiting for a nice, dry, warm day to transplant more seedlings. we are waiting for the last frost date & warmer soil to plant our summer crops. we are also waiting for the new members of our family to join their older sisters...


meet our newest flock of layers! 

we are so excited to see what this new season has to offer. we are digging in the soil, planting seeds & waiting as our bare landscape transforms into a bright green space with just enough to feed our family. 
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readers, we want to know- what would you like to see at tend this year? are there any topics you are particularly interested in us covering? thanks so much for your thoughts & ideas!

-natalie

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

raised bed gardening


we moved & are settling into our new home on the arkansas-oklahoma border. the first goal of our new home was to build raised beds. with some untreated wood, tools & a little elbow grease, we built four garden beds. we used the mu extension publication as our guide. (by the way, if you haven't connected with an extension office near you, i highly recommend it. they have a wealth of knowledge & are paid to help you!)


with our small amount of space, we used every inch of growing room-

planting shade-loving swiss chard in between tomato plants


& building trellises for squash & cucumber to climb (for this trellis, we used bamboo & gardening twine).


we are making progress in this bare yard, one step at a time.

what are some of the ways you use your garden space efficiently?