This type of garden (30 x 40’) does cost some money to start, but once you have it going the costs are very reasonable, as long as you are not paying for dirt.

I paid someone to build the raised beds and even out the land. I had someone dig out the topsoil (which I composted and was very rich soil) when he was digging out my driveway, but I could have just put down a black tarp or black plastic for several months to get rid of the grass instead.

The white fence (to appease the neighbors who were not sure they liked a garden in the front yard, where the most sunlight is) was pricy to get made. The other metal fencing cost about $120 years ago, and the green metal poles cost about $6 each when I bought them. I use shiny, impermeable black plastic to kill weeds, but the paths are generally covered with permeable black stuff to avoid slipping. Originally I put 3’ chicken wire creased into an L shape all around the garden to keep out digging critters, and covered it with newspaper and straw. There was 18” on the ground and 18 inches coming up along the sides of the fence. It looked good—for 1 year. Then the newspaper and straw turned to dirt. The groundhog(s) appeared to bite through the chicken wife, making an entrance to the garden through it, which they covered with leaves. It was a successful disguise, till I inadvertently stepped into the tunnel one day.

Garden staples are my go to for keeping the plastic on the paths, but I also like using bricks and rocks.

The compost heap could also be called the substrate for my metal raised beds

I also paid someone to build me the grape arbor, but I could have simply used tree stumps. The plan was for the metal feet to make the structure last a very long time, and for me to have a table under it and eat outdoors, pretending to be an Italian. Never happened, though.

The 4 blueberries are planted on the other side of the driveway. I finally realized they needed serious bird proofing if I was to get a decent harvest, and not use something birds could poke their beaks through. So I bought a 4 or 5’ tall tightly woven metal fence and cut it up to make a good circumference around each bush. You tie the ends together with bits of wire or even twisty ties. Then I cut circular pieces of my old plastic fencing to be attached to each fence, like a chef’s cap, leaving sufficient room for the bushes to grow. You want the bugs to get in to pollinate, but I want the birds eating my ornamental berries, not the blueberries.

I bought 3 types of northern potatoes the first year I planted them, 2 lbs each. I had never known that potatoes could be determinate or indeterminate and what that meant. But when it came time to “hill” the potatoes, I didn’t want to. Finally I hilled them with a mix of straw and dirt.

The next year I could not make myself hill the potatoes. And the first year, I never got any potatoes in the hills I had created, which is what is supposed to happen, so I thought.

Hilling a potato plant means burying most of it when it reaches a certain height, then burying it again when it gets even taller. It take a lot of dirt that you most likely don’t have to spare, and it is a lot more work than just planting them the first time.

Well, finally I looked up how to grow potatoes in a book, and learned that I had purchased two “determinate” potato varieties that are not supposed to be hilled. They are faster growing potatoes for a short growing season. They don’t put out tubers (new potatoes on stalks) in the hills you make, the way the “indeterminate” potatoes do.

Whew! All that extra work I thought I had to do was just brushed away.

Since the first year, I have simply not eaten all the potatoes I grew. I got about 50-60 lbs the first year out of the 6 lbs I planted. I planted about 4 lbs the next year and got about 40 lbs of potatoes. One of the three kinds grew much better than the other two, so now that is mostly what I am planting, and I have not purchased a potato in years. The other fun thing about them is that you invariably leave a few potatoes in the ground when you are harvesting them, and then they come back the next year or the next to give you a nice surprise. They also produce pretty flowers.

It is said that you can grow potatoes in bags or boxes, so they can even work when space is extremely limited. If you give them really good soil and nourishment, you can get up to 20 lbs for each lb you plant. Water well, but don’t keep them constantly wet.

Potatoes stay edible until it is time for spring planting, and then they suddenly shrivel up on you—so best plant them or eat them by the end of May. Mine have produced eyes already, even though they have been kept in the cool and dark, indicating they want to be planted soon.

If you start with indeterminate potatoes, you will need to keep adding soil to the bag or box or row as the plants grow taller, but you will probably get a bigger crop than I did.

Flowers make you happy and the neighbors happy, they can be put in vases, they smell good, and they bring the pollinators. The daffodils I planted go nuts making more daffs if I give them a topdressing of manure.

Rhubarb is what every New England gardener has. I don’t eat much cause it requires too much sugar to be edible, yet the plant keeps growing bigger each year though I have given it absolutely nothing to help it along.

If you fail to harvest some of your garlic plants, you will get a bunch of plants forming where there was only one the year before. But the cloves will be smaller. This is yet another plant that does not cost you any money after the first year—you just replant your biggest cloves in November after harvesting the bulbs in August.

These scallions also keep coming back, and stay kinda green all winter—you can pick them for cooking April through November or December—until the snow covers them. I just add my homegrown potting mix to the raised beds, because the beds shrink as they yield up their nutrients to the plants each year, and need to be topped up.

I kept the paths between the rows 2.5 feet, which lets me get a wheelbarrow all the way down the path, which is very heelpful when you have to add topsoil to the beds. It also makes sitting down in the rows comfortable.

Many people build narrower rows: 3’ is common. I was going for the best “row to path” ratio. There is more stretching involved with 4’ rows, but since the boards you buy generally come in 8’ or 12’ lengths, it is a practical size.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Meryl’s CHAOS letter (Critical Health Analysis and OpinionS) as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More