Putting the Garden In

Spring has sprung, and we have been gradually building our new garden as weather permits in preparation for our first planting season in the new house. We are so excited to finally have a permanent garden again, so we are trying to build it with intentionality.

We definitely have our work cut out for us. The right side of the yard gets the best light, but it is covered in driveway gravel. A co-worker suggested that I rake it up around the raised garden boxes as a weed barrier, and that is working well. However, when it’s time to get grass growing, digging out all those buried rocks is not going to be fun.

As you can see, we’re doing raised beds again. Our soil appears to be really rich, but I like the structure of the raised beds as a part of the overall landscape of the yard. I also prefer the lasagna gardening method as opposed to tilling.

The other thing I like about raised beds is that they give you a structure to work off when it comes to sheltering the garden, either from harsh weather or unwelcome guests.

We don’t want to fence the garden off, but we need to protect it from the dogs, as well as the neighborhood squirrel and bird populations. We saw a photo online and decided to build these frames that sit right on top. They are made of simple one by ones and green garden fencing. We chose the green plastic stuff because it is so much easier to work with.

That last picture is of our dedicated strawberry bed. I can’t wait to pick our own strawberries!