More beds built

Even though it was almost too hot to work yesterday (I put on SPF30 before heading out the door, but forgot about my back and now have a sunburnt strip just above the waistband of my shorts - ouch), my husband and I got out there in the garden and finally finished levelling it. Today we got two more raised beds made and filled. That brings the total plantable area of our vegetable garden to 16 square metres, which should be plenty for two people. And that's not counting all the tubs of tomatoes and peppers, the fruit trees dotted around our whole property, or the plastic bags with potatoes growing in them.

Here's how things look today:

 

I know you can't see all the beds properly, so here's the layout that I use in my Excel spreadsheet. Yes, I am project-managing my garden using Excel. And no, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Just as a reminder of how far we've come, here is how the garden looked in August 2008:

Here's how it looked in September 2008, after a hard day's work and vast amounts of help from our friends Fi and Rich:

And here's how it looked a year ago, as we attempted a traditional garden:

I can't help but be pleased with the order we imposed on the jungle that was there originally, and how much easier gardening is this year compared to the row-style gardening we were doing a year ago. Okay, so it's been a lot of work setting up all the raised beds, and not particularly cheap either, but now that we have that done we should be good to go for the next few years with only the addition of compost to keep the beds fertile. No more muddy feet, as we now have lovely paths between the beds, and no weeding to speak of either.

As far as results go, it's a bit early to judge for most things but I can tell you that the strawberries are doing very well indeed. We gather a couple of handfuls every day at the moment, and everyone who's tasted them has commented on how they "taste like proper strawberries!" compared to the bland watery supermarket offerings. Next year I'll be doing two square metres of strawberry plants rather than just one.

Garden bed layout

It occurred to me that I haven't updated the layout of the garden beds since we finished constructing them. Here's how it's laid out now:


The pale green beds are mine and the blue ones are my husband's to lay out as he chooses (although I have earmarked three of his squares for my tomatoes). He isn't as committed to the Square Foot Garden way as I am, although he's happy to go along with it for as long as it's working.

There is a tall fence along the right-hand side, and a low picket fence along the bottom. We have set up trellises on the fence edges of the bottom two beds (Beds 1 and 4), and on the bottom edge of Bed 5, to support tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans. These trellises are north-east facing so they get plenty of sunshine.

The pink square at the top right is currently just a weed patch. I hope to plant some bee-attracting flowers over there to keep the fuzzy little pollinators in our garden. We already have a family of bumble bees living in the compost heap but it's good to encourage all kinds of honey bees as well. They are always welcome in our garden (unlike wasps, which seem utterly pointless as well as nasty).

There's also a tall fence along the top edge of the layout, which casts quite a lot of shadow over the garden. I'm hoping that our potatoes thrive in their bags with a nice mixture of shade and sunshine, but if they don't do well then we'll carry them to some more suitable location.

Here's roughly what's in, or planned for, each bed:
Bed 1 - tomatoes, basil, various lettuce types, marigolds
Bed 2 - garlic, leeks, onions, strawberries
Bed 3 - not sure what is planned for this one. Right now it has broccoli and spinach.
Bed 4 - not sure what is planned for this one. Right now it has broccoli, marigolds, and some dead broad beans (the frost got them). I'm swiping three squares for tomatoes, and will plant some butter beans to replace the dead ones.
Bed 5 - not sure what is planned for this one. It has some carrots that are hopefully coming up (this bed has straw and chicken compost in it, and we fear that a lot of the little seedlings are actually weeds that were imported with the compost) and there will be cucumbers planted against the trellis.
Bed 6 - sweetcorn, pole beans, lettuce, raspberries

As well as the raised beds, we'll have lots of tubs with tomatoes and peppers, a row of Roma tomatoes against the edge of the back lawn, and a tub of herbs. We have loads of rosemary already, planted last year and still thriving, and some coriander, so I'll add a couple of others like thyme and parsley. It's always good to have fresh herbs.

Another bed laid out

Baby steps, but I'm getting there - I pulled up loads more weeds today, raked the ground level, and assembled another raised bed. We have nothing to fill it, but at least it's in the right spot now!


This bed is one that we bought pre-sawn and ready to assemble. It cost $129, which probably wasn't worth it compared to how cheaply we bought the materials for the other two (I think they cost something like $20 for the wood and $5 for the screws), but it certainly was very easy to slot together. It's going to take a lot of material to fill, though, and I can't see me being able or willing to buy enough individual bags of compost and peat to do the job. I think we need to find a bulk supplier somewhere...

How many beds?

How many raised beds should we have? Our back garden is fairly spacious, maybe 7 metres wide by six metres deep, with a 1 x 4m chunk taken out of it for the compost pile. We also have a large front garden with a lot of bed space, but the beds are fairly irregular and have trees and shrubs here and there, so I don't think that will work for large containers. Having said that, there is one patch of bare grass beside the chicken coop which would fit a 2m x 1m bed and allow plenty of sunlight at the plants.

This is the layout that I'm currently considering for the back garden. Each 2m x 1m bed will be divided up into nine 33cm squares, allowing for 18 different plantings per bed.

The bottom edges of beds 2, 3, and 5 will have trellises to support tall plants (most likely tomatoes) and allow them to get sunlight without shading the rest of the bed.

Beds 1 and 4 will be partially shaded for most of the day, because of the tall fence and trees which belong to our neighbour. I expect we can put something like lettuces in there and protect them from the worst heat of the summer.