garden types

[fordson major]

i have been looking for info on all types of gardening to post as a sticky for newbies and old hands that want to try different methods of growing gardens, however things here have been a little hectic of late. whats your favorite garden technique and how has it work for you? remember, pictures tell a thousand words! remember back in 64 my grans neighbors telling me that my gran had it all wrong fertilizing with sewage (cow manure) and theirs was the only way! (bagged fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides!) by the 80's they had changed their minds but not my gran! she gardened like she always had till she went to her reward.

[mooman]

Layout and Cultivation
My garden is worked up into permanent 4ft raised beds (just mounded up, no support) with narrow 1ft paths that I dug out between the beds. This allows me to plant double rows of just about everything. (Big stuff I stager so recommended spacing is maintained). Very productive with little wasted space.

Cultivation and Mulching
The fact that the beds and PATHS are permanent means they (the beds) do not get compacted. I will be LIGHTLY tilling them at the end of the season to turn the mulch under, but not destroy the "tilth" of the soil. Cultivation during the season is with my hands or a hoe. I mulch heavily with anything available. Sometimes newspaper and dried grass clippings, sometimes wheat straw. **a chicken feed bag with the ends cut off, the outer colored paper removed and a whole cut in the middle makes an awesome weed block for Mellons**

Irrigation
I have a drip tape irrigation system (was very inexpensive and highly recommended) which means I don't have to fight the hose and I can mulch with newspaper and straw/grass cuttings without worrying about water perking through (the tape runs under the mulch). This means I lose very little water to evaporation and soil remains cool in the heat of the summer.

Crop Rotation
Starting this year 1/8 of the garden is fenced off planted with forage crops and will be housing meat birds. Next year birds go on a new plot. Last years bird plot will get a cover crop planted and plowed under and the year after it will go back into rotation. That means 1/4 of my garden is out of production each year.

Pesticide/Fertilizer Use
I am of the belief that as with most things in life compromise is the key. Pure organic results in insufficient yields and too much below grade produce for my taste. Nuking the garden with pesticides as a prophylactic measure......well if I wanted to do that I'd buy a factory farm. I use organic pest control where I can get away with it and limited chemical pesticides where I can't. Every situation is evaluated differently. When I use a chemical pesticide I research the active ingredient and use it responsibly (mind the bees and the runoff/drift).

I use chemical ferts, bagged manure, and aged compost from the chicken coop.


Here are some pics. I still have to put fencing up (to keep chickens out and turkeys in). The main posts are in cement. It will be designed to remove the end fences during the off season for tilling and to rearrange turkey enclosure. I have not started adding mulch yet. It will get added as time/materials become available. The main paths will eventually get covered with free mulch from municipal recycle center.


Wide angle of the garden(turkey pen planted with forage crops is front and center)


Reverse Angle (potatoes and beets are up)


Good view of the beds and irrigation system


The feed bag mulch I mentioned


I should add that this is only my second year on the property. Two years ago I was renting and my biggest garden was 20x30. Last year I had 30% less bed space and nice wide grass pathways.....it was pretty.....but I got sick of mowing my garden.

[kyJeeper]

Rotation[/B]
Starting this year 1/8 of the garden is fenced off planted with forage crops and will be housing meat birds. Next year birds go on a new plot. Last years bird plot will get a cover crop planted and plowed under and the year after it will go back into rotation. That means 1/4 of my garden is out of production each year.

I like that rotation. If I had more time in the garden I would go straight organic.

[wyld thang]

I think this is a really good thread topic and very agree it should be sticky'd

however

this thread is worthless without PICTURES, right?

I'll be back with mine

[wyld thang]

I call my garden method cram-it-all-in-because----->I<-----think-it's-yummy-pretty-useful. I've recently found out this is called Edible Forest Gardening. I'm gradually adding the taller elements to my garden. I don't use commercial fertilizers, I use compost, leaves, egg shells, coffee grounds, wood ash and chicken poop. I don't use pesticides--I find that I am so far out beyond the rural farmland I don't have the pests--except for maybe slugs, which pinecones and ash keep at bay. No noxious weeds, a fence for the deer. I don't grow stuff that just won't grow here, like melons. Berries and apples are fruit enough.



In this first picture you can see the fence, two rolls of hog wire high. The deer can still jump over it, but it's enough of a pain they don't. I've seen them jump OUT when the gate is left open and something chases them. The bed in the foreground is herbs, with strawberries (mints, chives, rosemary, lambsears, thyme, oregano, plus strawberries, wild checkermallow, wild rose and a forsythia and a bronze fennel). The bed behind it has strawberries, and I will add a bean teepee(to add nitrogen back into teh berry bed) and a few lettuce. The other bed is more herbs along with arnica, iris, mallow, eucalyptus(an unhappy one), blue flag, fireweed and snowberry.



This is a new bed I put together this spring. It's got apple mint, lamb's ears, rhubarb, hollyhock, sedum, bronze fennel, deadnettle, bluebells and a little butterfly kinda bird bath. I like to have fennel for the swallowtails. And it's pretty. It's mulched with pinecones, I'm going to pull them off and put down grass clippings then put the cones back. I will also add a few strawberries, lemon balm, and wild violets.

I don't really rotate crops, because I don't have the bad stuff(at least enough to notice it). I mulch really good, water very well once a week.

The grassy ailse provides mulch for the garden.

[mooman]

Beautiful! It makes mine look so utilitarian.

[wyld thang]

mooman! thanks so much for adding your pix! you've done an awesome job, enjoy!

and I have to say everytime I read your "chemical ferts" I read it as "chemical farts" I just can't help it it makes me smile

[peacebaker]

Wow I love both mooman and wyldthang's gardens, and they're so different! A perfect example of how adapting to your space and your personality creates the best garden style for you.

So, for some more variety, here's a more urban/suburban version.

I started with regular beds, moved to raised mounded beds which finally evolved into framed raised beds. I like the neatness and that I can plant right up to the edge. I have never owned or used a rototiller, we just double-dug the sod the first year, and have been amending with compost for about 10 years, so the soil is getting really lovely. I mulch with grass clippings mostly. We have always done kind of a "french intensive" method of growing closely together in blocks rather than rows. I've adapted a bit of square foot gardening over the years, it helps me stay organized for consecutive planting. I use mostly organic methods and have a nice balance of good/bad insects and rarely need to intervene. It helps being small a lot of bug problems can be managed by hand.

Over the years I've moved lower maintenance crops like onions, garlic, and winter squash to another area of the yard that is not fenced. This has freed up space in this main area. The main veggie garden was enlarged by about 50% this year, my total planting space (for all gardens) is about 336 square feet. (not including fruit trees or bushes).

Even in a small space like this we have enough veggies (for 2 adults) to eat all summer, and freeze/can for most of the year.


Here's my main veggie bed (please note this is pre-planting and right after my expansion project and the neatness/weedlessness is atypical!