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What is the diameter of the planting bed in relation to the drip line of the tree? If you raise the soil grade one foot around the tree you will kill the roots in that area that the tree uses to exchange air. It is not advised to cover much more than forty percent of the surface of the tree from the drip line to the trunk. I have seen many trees near new ...
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The bulk of the root systems of most annual vegetables is in the top foot of soil, so 12" (30cm) of soil will be sufficient. Root vegetables will want more -- you may have a hard time growing good carrots or beets in a 12" deep container. Since you're going to "seal" the bottom of the raised beds, you're essentially creating a container for growing. With ...
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Check out juniper! It lasts longer than cedar or redwood without any chemicals, plus it is an invasive species in Oregon. Cutting it helps to restore the grassland ecosystem -- no old growth forests need be clear cut to obtain this stuff!
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You'll never get it completely flat before you use it, though it will tend to flatten over time.
To get most of the curl out, unroll it "upside down" so that the wire on the end bites into the ground. Put a couple of cement blocks or something heavy on that end. Roll out the rest of the fence, putting weights on it wherever it wants to curl back up. Leave ...
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It appears your beds are pretty deep. At least a foot deep by my estimation. Most edibles you'll plant won't need to be that deep. 4-6" is enough for a lot of plants except for root vegetables but you can always add an extension in those areas. You don't have to make the whole bed deep just for a few potatoes or carrots.
Since you have that much depth what ...
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An important thing that many people miss is that if a cover crop produces fruit and seed (beans in your case) it is no longer a cover crop or green manure, but a crop, which depletes the soil rather than rebuilding it. That is, all the nitrogen a legume has put into the soil during the growth stage, is consumed by the plant during the fruiting stage. So if ...
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I'm by no means an expert, however I am pretty sure that, at least for Zucchini, Cucumber and peppers 1% more light = 1% more growth. Thus in order to increase growth, maybe you should start moving these into full sun.
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There are two possible problems that could come from using manure on root vegetables, one of which only applies to fresh manure and the other is more applicable to fresh manure also.
The first, and the most obvious, is the potential for contamination. If you're putting the manure into the soil, the part of the vegetable you eat is growing in direct contact ...
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There is a big difference between manure from ruminants (e.g. cows) and non-ruminants (e.g. horses, chickens, etc).
Non-ruminant herbivores produce poo which is relatively bulky and contains a lot of undigested plant material. This material is degraded rather quickly by bacteria, but until that happens the manure is traditionally described as "hot", and ...
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This looks like blossom end rot. Here is another source of info.
According to the second link, which is from Clemson University:
After tomatoes are planted, gardeners can minimize the potential for blossom end rot by doing the following:
Once transplants become established, encourage the production of a large root system by keeping plants a little ...
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Most tree roots are within six inches of the surface where there is air and water that is freely available. Any kind of tilling or compacting will have a negative effect on the trees health.
Most mature trees like it just the way it is and changes to their environment must be done slowly, if at all, to give them time to adapt.
See your other question for ...
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Dog pee once in a while on the ground won't hurt anything, especially with the amount of rain you likely get - but if it's happening a lot then it can "burn" your plants with the excess nitrogen and alkalinity. And, if you have low hanging fruit and the dog pees on that, well, I think none of us would find that appetizing, even if it wasn't necessarily ...
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First a question. What is going to be underneath your raised beds? Garden soil, lawn, patio, other?
If you're going to get into raised bed vegetable gardening I strongly suggest you look into Square Foot Gardening. It makes a lot of things easier when it comes to raised bed gardening and can also save you a considerable amount of money. For one thing, you ...
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Normally with cover crops you want them to grow as long as possible, where possible is influenced by:
When you plan to plant the actual crop (including some time for breakdown of the cover crop residues.)
Is the cover crop about to set seed and become a weed through self-seeding?
The tops/leaves are also valuable material - you can either incorporate them ...
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My potato bag is one square foot in diameter, and just under 2 foot high. You have 16 square feet in your bed so you could potentially plant one seed potato ( or part of one with at least 3 eyes ) per square foot. One foot deep is about the minimum you can go.
Assuming you have good drainage, and you're using a well fertilized soil, you can plant each ...
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Topping with compost is always a good idea, it should be an annual fall event, however it won't hurt to do it in the spring when you move in.
In any case it's always good to bring some samples from each bed to your agricultural extension office and get a full test done. It will tell you what the soil has and what it should be amended with.
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The answer really depends on how much space you have to grow tomatoes. The reason most people choose to start with tomato seedlings or plants in areas that are not tropical is that the growing season is relatively short. By the time your volunteer tomatoes start to give fruit (about 100+ days after they start growing for a lot of the short-season varieties, ...
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Just wash them all in clean tapwater - the hardest are the leafy greens, so the way to do that is immersion in a sink full of water, then picking out the leaves and running them directly under the tap, at the same time as inspecting for eggs and caterpillars. Then a salad spinner if you've got one, or just leave them to drain down in a colander. You may need ...
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Without looking at your video, I would expect the landscape fabric is being laid as a weed mat to inhibit weeds from regenerating from roots left in situ and coming up in the middle of the raised garden bed.
Some people use layers of newspapers, and others old wool carpets.
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Constructed 3 large raised containers 5 years ago using green oak and have found this to be a successful material. I was looking for a very solid and long lasting material. The raised boxes are 4' x 10' x 2', using 2" thick cut material. A few problems I found with green oak included the weight and the density of the wood. So make sure you have access to ...
7
There are two dangers with blackberries:
Suckers
Seeds
I have tons of wild blackberries; it must be some kind of sick contest between them and the ragweed as to which is the top weed here. I don't know that much about cultivated blackberries, but I believe have seen "non suckering" advertised as a feature of some cultivars.
They'll apparently grow ...
7
If you have enough soil to go on top, I recommend "sheet mulching" by putting down cardboard on top of the grass to kill it. Otherwise, it will inexorably work itself up, and you'll have a raised bed full of grass.
This is the basis of so-called "lasagna gardening," where you layer cardboard, compost, soil, and mulch to turn lawn into garden space.
If you ...
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I'd be worried that the cardboard will act as a root blocker and the corn won't be able to develop the deep roots it needs.
As for the grass...like any weed, you'd need to pull it out. Corn is a grass too, so unless you planted round-up ready corn, you likely don't want to use any grass poisons (not that you'd want to use poisons on your garden anyways).
...
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Think about what you're going to plant and how much you want to plant. Come up with a list of everything you want to put in your garden and sketch it out roughly to scale to see if the design will work better for you. It's easier to make changes on paper before you build your beds.
A few years ago I read up on Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew but ...
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I find that raised beds are best for:
early spring production
drainage
square foot garden (limited space)
older people
And I have also found that I can grow more per plant in the ground beds, but they start a bit later.
If you have the time and energy to heavily amend a ground bed, I think you will like the reults better. That is just my experience. I ...
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Usually, you would wait until the plants are in full flower, and have no ripe seeds, then cut/mow the tops down and turn them under. This will add the most nitrogen to the soil (the green tops are very high in Nitrogen), and the soil microorganism population will jump, increasing nutrient availability. In a raised bed, if you don't want to turn the tops ...
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If the soil temperature is adequate, the seeds are good, the depth is correct, then likely the seeds are rotting in the ground or are being eaten by animal life.
That's why people use seed mixes to plant seeds into, to avoid bacterial and fungal pathogens, to avoid competition from other plants (allelopathy), and for good drainage.
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Looking at the measurements of your garden bed, it sounds like square foot gardening. And yes, potatoes are included in that method, one seed per square, so sixteen for your bed.
One issue with potatoes is depth: For a good harvest the emerging sprouts are covered with soil to encourage more root mass and more tubers.
In "standard" gardening, this is ...
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Sitting on soil allows worms and other critters to enter and exit the bottom of the bin. Also, I would think the drainage would be poor and you could get an anaerobic smelly mess at the bottom.
As another alternative, I have had good experiences with http://geobin123.com/ . My mother has had one for almost a decade and it hasn't degraded at all.
All of the ...
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I've tried 2 bins similar to the picture on the left. They did not work well. They took a very long time to break down the compost. It was difficult to turn the pile because it was so small. They filled up way too fast because they were so small, and stayed full because they were inefficient. I ended up selling them both and using the money to buy wood to ...
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