Getting Started

Well, it took a long time planning and a couple of weekends to build, but we finally have our garden in place. We live in Houston (zone 9a) with clay soils and poor drainage, so we opted for raised beds. We are going for a combination of square foot/intensive gardening, and local advice from Urban Harvest and Bob Randall.

We placed the garden in the back left of our yard. It makes the most "sense" there, but I hope it will get enough sun. We recently trimmed the trees, but I haven't seen the area in the spring/summer. Besides, 12 hours of full Texas sun may be too much anyway. I guess we'll find out in a few months.

The beds were relatively easy to make. The boxes went together fast (thank you Micah), our biggest problem was the amount of dirt it took to fill the boxes. I thought I had calculated the amount needed, but I was way off. I don't even want to total the receipts right now. Our added soil is a mix of roughly equal parts of vermiculite, peat moss, and compost (heavy on the compost). Hopefully we will start making our own compost soon. We added the square foot trellis described by Mel. The rebar for the trellis was amazing easy to pound into the ground. I am still waiting for trellis netting to arrive before I put the finishing touches on it. Surprisingly, vermiculite was easy to find in Houston where trellis netting was not. We also placed a soaker hose in both beds. Micah is in charge of the irrigation and of course he has found 4 gadgets to help him measure pressure, timers, etc. I need this garden to be as easy as possible for it to work, and timed waterings will save me a lot of effort. Now our biggest problem is keeping the critters out of the bed. Something keeps digging various holes in the bed. I have a suspicion that the "something" is about 20lbs and goes by the name of Major, but I don't have proof... Micah is trying to install a scarecrow that will shoot water at any trespassers. We'll see. We may just fence it off. I think Micah likes the idea of spraying water at small animals. Either way, the problem needs to be solved soon.

Today I planted Sugar snap peas, chiogga beets, bok choy, and scarlet nantes carrots (one of these squares was dug up this afternoon after I planted them.. :( I will fix the carrot square and plant parsley tomorrow.

I'll try to post some pictures soon. Cross your fingers and hope things grow. I am still not convinced that those tiny seeds are going to turn into a bountiful harvest...