My raised bed vegetable garden has gotten a much-needed overhaul. After considering various options, we decided to have our handyman build me a custom garden to maximize the garden space. So instead of having 15 sq. ft. of garden space, I now have 35 sq. ft. of garden space in the sunniest part of the yard.
Both gardens are deep (~24 inches) for less bending and more organic matter. I decided to fill them with lots of branches and organic matter. It follows the generally principle of hugelkultur but only in the incorporation of lots of fresh biomass and wood. To hear a little more about hugelkultur, check out these links:
A good introduction to the topic from some folks at Michigan State.
More from RichSoil
Some discussion about filling raised beds using this approach from a couple of my favorite YouTube garden channels: Epic Gardening and Self Sufficient Me.
You can see the progress of the layering in the "tringle" bed.
Big branches first. Plus a couple dead shrubs. I pondered adding the dead shrubs but if Kevin at Self Sufficient Me can bury roadkill kangaroo in his fruit tree beds, what harm could an azalea do?
Next, some twigs. Collected from the nearby woods.
Misc. garden waste (another bad shrub), then leaves, grass clippings, and eventually straw.
Then I start mixing the soil - following the Square Foot Gardening Mel's mix - and adding that to the garden. Once the soil was in, I built a bamboo grid for my square-foot garden and started planting.
Last step, a trellis for training the plants vertically. Here's the final product. Not to worry, the poles are very close to vertical and horizontal. The angles in the photo make them look very strange here.
Here is the view of the beds and the side of the front porch. Very pretty gardens if I say so myself.
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