|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 16, 2018 18:57:08 GMT -5
The youngster got my raised bed built. Yea! He will be back tomorrow to mix the soil. All I gotta do is plant! its made out of double stacked 2 x 8 lumber. It's 3' wide and 8' long me me thinks it's Tripindicular!
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 16, 2018 19:02:10 GMT -5
That looks nice. So what will be planted in that bed?
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 16, 2018 19:12:27 GMT -5
Semposia, Komatsuma, radishes, lettuce, etc kale Tronchuda
maybe. I gotta dig through my stash. Can't remember what all I got from Remy
in the Fall, I'll do
bok choy tatsoi choy sum kale
|
|
|
Post by bestofour on Feb 17, 2018 11:44:04 GMT -5
wonder how many bags of dirt will take to fill it? I had dirt delivered and it was $300.00 a load. I'd like a cheaper option for the new bed.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 17, 2018 11:54:28 GMT -5
well let's see. double stacked 2 x 8 should be about 15" tall thereabouts. It's 8' long and 3' wide.
So I think 30 cubic feet. Does that sound bout right?
I should be close
2 bags peat is 4.5 2 bags black cow is 3 5 bags MG soil is 10 5 bags MR compost is 7.5 5 bags 10% cow manure 90% compost is 7.5
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 17, 2018 12:06:18 GMT -5
That looks great! I have two beds about that size and I love them. The 3' width is good for me; since I am short, it is awkward for me to reach the middle of a 4' wide bed. Your bed is a good depth, too - you have enough depth to grow great carrots and nice long Daikon radishes if you want grow them later. One suggestion: if you have a lot of trouble with burrowing critters like moles or voles, you might consider lining the bottom of the bed with wire mesh before filling it. It won't interfere with drainage or roots growing through to the ground, but it should keep the diggers from attacking your plants from below. Looks like a good mix of materials you have to fill it, too. Yes, 30 cu ft is right for the volume. I think you have enough, maybe with some left over. If that peat moss is in compressed bales, it will expand a fair bit once you fluff and moisten it. If you have leftover, it would be a good container mix. If you have a lot leftover, maybe you could finagle a smaller bed to fill. 3' x 3' is good for a nice little kitchen herbs bed or a cute flower patch to brighten the garden and attract pollinators.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 17, 2018 14:55:29 GMT -5
Well...It's raining. Wife says rain is forecasted for the next 10 days.
Can't do anything about the weather, so I guess I'll wait. The youngster said to call him anytime in the afternoons if the weather breaks and he wil mix up the soil.
It bees that way sometimes.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 17, 2018 14:59:15 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, Thanks, I just kinda went with some stuff I had mixed up in the past and it has worked pretty good. I haven't done a lot of growing in raised beds, but I'm pretty excited.
|
|
|
Post by tomike on Feb 17, 2018 16:17:31 GMT -5
I like your raised bed idea and my sister wants to have a garden and a "green thumb" she does not have.....
The size is about right for just having fun and producing food..... Got to get the BIL to like the idea..... cause he gets to do the work.......
|
|
|
Post by ladymarmalade on Feb 17, 2018 16:27:36 GMT -5
That size IS the perfect size! I have 3 x 8 and 3 x 10 in my garden. Three feet across is perfect for reaching from both sides with little strain. Here's a pair of mine.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 17, 2018 17:48:03 GMT -5
Yea!!!! It stopped raining. Young man fixed me up and is nearly done and ready for planting!!!!
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 17, 2018 18:08:42 GMT -5
That looks so appealing and here I am watching it snow! This morning it was bright and sunny and then about 3 pm it started snowing like mad. By 4 pm everything was white and now by 6 pm it is plowable and the plow trucks are running up and down the road outside of my house.
It is such weird weather when 2 days ago it was almost 70 degrees and felt wonderful. Oh well, it IS February so I guess that I can't complain too much.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 17, 2018 18:10:07 GMT -5
Sweet! Now those baby senposai and komatsuna have a lovely home.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 0:18:35 GMT -5
ladymarmalade, Your beds are really nice! I wish I had a few more. It's kinda costly up front, but I think it will be really nice. The lumber was just sitting in the shed. I think there is a couple of 2" x 12" left. I might have to try and get one more put together. Took right at 100 bucks to fill it, so.....to be continued. Hahahaa
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 0:36:02 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, ladymarmalade, One question, do y'all grid it out with twine like the square foot fellow did? The info I found on the web said as follows. 16 radish per Square Foot 9 carrots PSF 4 lettuce PSF (seems to small a space to me) Does that sound right? Also, I've never grown semposia and Komatsuma. Does it get big? If it does, should I just put 1 PSF? What about Kale? Yes or No in bed.
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 18, 2018 1:30:57 GMT -5
hairymooseknuckles, The senposai gets big - as big as many kales and collards. I plant them 16" apart, measuring by turning on the T-tape briefly, and planting at every other output, which are 8" apart, and I zig-zag them on both sides of the hose. I also plant the komatsuna at this spacing, though it doesn't get as large. Both grow large enough to shade out most weeds that try to pop up.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 1:56:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 18, 2018 2:27:07 GMT -5
I have never gridded out my raised beds; I just eyeballed spacing. Sometimes you can really tell, too. Crooked lines and uneven spacing makes things look more natural, right? Square foot gardening and other intensive planting methods use more plants in a smaller space. For many plants (such as lettuce and greens), you pack a lot of plants in very densely. Because of the crowding, you get less smaller plants and less yield per plant, but because you can fit so many plants into the space, your overall yield per square foot is higher. It works great with greens, because small leaves are tender and tasty. (Crowding doesn't work so well with some other vegetables, IMO.) With that in mind, the recommended 4 PSF spacing for lettuce assumes that you're harvesting leaf or romaine lettuce as baby heads or that you're harvesting using the "cut and come-again" method. You get a ton of lettuce plants in one bed, but you'll only harvest smaller leaves and/or heads. If you want to grow real heading lettuce (like iceberg) or want big heads of leaf or romaine lettuce, you have to give the plants more space, except maybe for the really narrow/upright romaines. What I actually do is plant my leaf lettuce at about 4 PSF and harvest every other plant (small heads) when they start to get crowded. Then I harvest the remaining plants as they get bigger...basically when I want lettuce I harvest the plants I need from the spots that are the most crowded. Senposai is big and kind of spreading. I would say 1 PSF. Komatsuna is also pretty big, but more upright. You might be able to plant them at 2 PSF. If you decide 2 PSF is too crowded, you can always harvest half of them young and eat them, and let the rest fill the space. 9 PSF for carrots should give you good-sized carrots. For carrot varieties that are naturally thinner or to harvest as baby carrots you might can probably plant at 16 PSF. Conversely, if you are growing varieties that make really thick carrots you might want to plant at 4 PSF to get those whoppers. But 9 PSF (roughly 4" spacing) is a good place to start for most carrots. 16 PSF is for those little salad radishes. If you want to grow bigger Daikons or other large radishes, you'll need to give them more room. Kale: the one time I grew it (I am not a kale fan), it grew fantastic in my raised beds. 1 PSF is good for most; some of the more spreading types might want a bit more room. Ladymarmalade has a lot more experience with kale than me. The main thing to remember in raised bed planting is to stagger your rows. In other words, plant like this: _X___X___X___X___ ___X___X___X___X_ _X___X___X___X___ ___X___X___X___X_ not like this: _X___X___X___X_ _X___X___X___X_ _X___X___X___X_ _X___X___X___X_ Staggering the rows gives each plant the most space possible in all directions. That's important when you're cramming the plants together as close as you possibly can. Good luck! I bet you'll be really happy with raised bed growing, especially with greens.
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 3:08:18 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, Thank you so much for the detailed reply! It's much appreciated. About the only experience I have with container gardening is a couple of tomatoes I did when I moved to the big city. I tried Cantaloupes in a plastic swimming pool and it was a disaster. I'm excited about the raised bed. All my lettuce is non heading I think, but I'm not sure. Remy sent me a couple of bonus ones to try. One of them is red tipped, but can't think of its name. I bought some Nantes carrots, Cherry Bell radish too.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 18, 2018 9:05:04 GMT -5
hairymooseknuckles , also don't forget that you do not need to plant in every square inch like in intensive gardening if there are only 3 of you eating the produce. The first time I planted leaf lettuce I had enough for an army and could not possibly eat it all and a lot got wasted.
Now I just plant a short row, maybe 2' long of each different variety of lettuce. I plant them in a block next to each other and it looks pretty and gives me different colors and flavors of leaf lettuce.
I also don't want all of my radishes at the same time so I plant a row, wait a week, plant another row, wait a week, etc. That way I don't have 100 radishes sitting in my refrigerator.
Carrots take 100 days or so to mature so I plant them all at once.
|
|
|
Post by ladymarmalade on Feb 18, 2018 11:00:21 GMT -5
The first few years I did the raised beds with SFG, I did use twine and grid out my beds. The twine turned out to be really annoying when it was time to re-do the bed, and I hated the thought of having to re-staple it every time. So then I bought Gardening Grids I would press them into the dirt to mark my spaces. Worked nicely, but they didn't last AND they were expensive. You could easily just mark out a grid with a stick and call it good. Then use the end of that same stick as a dibble to mark your holes for your seeds. So now I just eyeball it, and I'm usually happy with my results. Sometimes I follow the SFG recommendations, sometimes I don't. Carrots I usually do 12 PSF, but I don't grow any that get super fat. Bush Beans 4 PSF Radishes 12-16, depends on the radish. French Breakfast I push to 16, Beets 4 PSF Swiss Chard 4 PSF Leaf lettuce I don't measure, I sprinkle all over the square and lightly cover with soil. Head lettuce I do 4 PSF, but I never expect it to get very large here. Eggplant 1 per SF Scallions I also do the sprinkle all over and lightly cover with soil. Kale is a tight squeeze with one square foot, but it can be done. Last year in the raised bed I took a 9 foot square space and planted 5 kale plants- one in each corner of the square, and then one in the middle. X X _X_ X X For brassicas in general, I give them a little more space, staggering them as Laura suggested. Broccoli can sometimes do 1 SF each, but most cauliflower, cabbage and kohlrabi cannot. Their outer leaf span is simply too large. However, I grow arrowhead cabbage, which I then plant 2 PSF, as it's a nice small cabbage that grows perfectly in raised beds. I have done tomatoes at 1 PSF in raised beds- I feel they really do better in the ground where they are allowed to sprawl, but I wouldn't think twice about putting some in my raised beds. They do better at 18 inches apart though, and you have to plan accordingly for support systems. Peppers I have discovered like to be planted with a buddy, so I do 2 of the same variety of pepper plant in 1 SFG. Their roots like the company under ground. For anything that climbs (cukes, peas, tomatoes, etc.) you definitely have to plan carefully where you will have your support system in place so that it doesn't shade plants you don't want shaded. But, you can also use that as a season extender for lettuces and such that tend to bolt with too much sun IF you can plan carefully. I have not mastered that skill yet, but I hear it's possible.
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 18, 2018 11:42:21 GMT -5
hairymooseknuckles, That staggering that Laura diagrammed is what I was referring to with the zig-zag, with the T-tape down the middle of every other row. And remember, all greens, except those that form heads, are "cut and come again", which continue to grow from a central rosette, like parsley, if you just cut the outer leaves. This includes spinach, kale, leaf lettuce, chard, collards, mustard greens, bok choy, tatsoi, komatsuna, senposai, mizuna, mibuna, and many others. This is too labor intensive for commercial farming, which is why we usually see things like bok choy as the whole plant in stores, plus that keeps better, for shipping. But I just cut what I need for a few days, and they keep well in the fridge. They will keep growing until they bolt, usually from heat. So you need less of these greens than you think you do!
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 18, 2018 12:04:32 GMT -5
Good point, brownrexx,! Especially since you can't freeze lettuce, it's easy to over-plant and wasting a lot. If you're planting crops that freeze well, like carrots or most greens that are cooked, overplanting is not as much of a problem. At least not until you run out of freezer space. When you see that glorious fresh soil it's hard not to go put seeds or plants everywhere in it right away, isn't it?
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 14:09:24 GMT -5
When you see that glorious fresh soil it's hard not to go put seeds or plants everywhere in it right away, isn't it? Yes it is!
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 14:15:50 GMT -5
ladymarmalade , pepperhead212 , brownrexxThank you so much! You've been a big help. We like radishes, but I don't eat them in salad. We take them and dice them up with onions and fry them like "home fries" They are low Carb too
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 18, 2018 19:28:13 GMT -5
We got the bed planted. I didn't realize it, but wife noticed I had 2 and 3 plants in some of the Komatsuma. By the time we had broken the peat pellets up, we had 18 spots planted. Not much else is going to fit in this bed! I have 6 squares left. That my Momma's boots. Hehehe. I meant to zig zag the plants, but there wasn't room. I put the Semposia in each corner spot. I was worried about not having enough, but I think we be good. LAUGHING!!!!!
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 19, 2018 0:08:53 GMT -5
Lots of future fine greens there hairymooseknuckles! Do you know what you want to do with the remaining six squares, or are you going to ponder that for a while?
|
|
|
Post by hairymooseknuckles on Feb 19, 2018 0:33:23 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, Originally, I had wanted some lettuce, radish and carrots, so.... it's kinda of a toss up.
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Feb 19, 2018 1:55:02 GMT -5
Lookin' good!
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Feb 19, 2018 7:09:38 GMT -5
|
|