First step for the garden is to design it. This house had no garden area to speak of when we bought it. There are a few retaining walls in the front yard not keep the ground from washing away, but it doesn't look like any one ever planted in them. This is where I did my test of tomatoes this year (which I was pleasantly surprised how well they did) but it's not a large enough area for what we want. So, we're going to put the garden on the side of the house and back yard. According to google this space is about 2200sqft! We plan to put a 16'x20' greenhouse next to the house in 2016, and the rest of the garden to the back fence. Here is our satellite shot of our property before we bought it to give an idea of what I'm talking about.
Things I need to figure out:
1) do I want raised beds or in-ground beds?
2) placement of beds
3) deer/dog protection
4) hail protection
1) I think I'm going to do a mixture. There are pros and cons of both and I'm hoping to strike a happy balance. Raised boxes: pros - warm earlier in the spring, easy to amend soil. Cons - gets cooler quicker in the fall, more expensive to start. In-ground: pros - stays warmer later, unlimited depth, low start up cost. Cons - longer to warm up in fall, harder to amend.
I think I'll do a few raised bed near the back fence, and do some in ground beds in the rest. I think I'll outline the in-ground beds with wood and each year add more wood as I amend and build the soil. This will cut out the major start-up costs of raised beds. I plan to leave a couple beds as only in-ground though for fall plants.
2) I really want to design the garden to be visibly pleasing as well as functional. I've been perusing pinterest for potager garden plans and have found a couple I think I'll modify to suit my tastes.
3) In the inside of the garden we'll probably just build a small fence to keep the dogs out. Not sure what style yet; wood, wire, etc. On the outside fence we're talking about adding 8ft poles about every 12-15ft and running a couple visible strings a foot apart on them to keep the deer from jumping over.
4) This is the part I'm researching now. So far I'm leaning toward pvc hoops over each bed and using a fabric that I can roll down like I did in our last garden. I like this because I can put the fabric up and down easily in response to weather. I know I took pictures of my system but can't find them anywhere. Here is a pic of someone else's. See how the cloth stays up on it's own? It's great. The trick is getting the ends tight enough.
I want to use this cloth or something similar depending on price. It's a knitted polyethylene that can stand up to hail and storms but lets light and rain through.
I'm hoping this plan will be relatively inexpensive. I've seen a lot of people use hardware cloth but that only protects the top, you still have to wrap the sides with something, and it's way too expensive to cover our large area.
I'll update as plans get finalized.
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