Beginner Gardening: New to raised beds in TX: HELP, 1 by oyye_vey

oyye_vey wrote:
Melissa,

Greetings from a fellow Texan! We just moved to Indiana for the first time a few years ago after being born and raised in Texas (I grew up in College Station actually... a few miles from you). After moving to Indiana we decided to make raised vegetable beds in our back yard after I read a book called "Square Foot Gardening". We really had no idea what we were doing and called our first year our learning year. It was such an educational year for us. We learned that bush beans will not climb up a trellis... no matter how much you want them to and that planting 40 tomato plants in 40 square feet is way too much plant for the space. :) We got to learn all about cabbage worms and early blight and crammed tons of information into just a few months... What valuable months those turned out to be.

I think in order to have a successful garden the most important thing that you need is enthusiasm.. and it seems like you have that in heaps. When we decided to make our garden beds we had to do it on a budget. Working in Houston we both had full time jobs and two incomes to depend on, but since moving up here we've decided that I will be at home with our children and my husband works full time so money is an issue. There is an amazing hardware store up here (low end stuff) that has a great clearance section for their wood and they had tons of plain wooden siding for 49 cents per 4 foot length of siding. On a side note I know that Home Depot and Lowes in Texas does have a clearance section for wood, it's just not quite the same as the Menard's up here. After getting enough siding we primed all of it on a tarp in the back yard with outdoor primer and started assembling. I am a fairly short woman so I needed to be able to reach the center of the garden beds so 4 feet was the maximum width that I could go, but they could be as long as we wanted. We ended up making 4 4ft x 10ft beds the first year and filling with bags of garden soil, manure and peat moss after we laid down landscaper's fabric. We didn't put nearly enough soil, but everything seemed to thrive anyway for some reason. This year had 4 cubic yards of black soil/brown soil/peat moss/horse manure delivered and raised the soil level to a more reasonable depth. For the vining things we use 8 foot hard plastic type rods that we drive into the ground a foot or two and then use jute or sisal twine to make a net for it to climb up. This seems to be very easy on the plants and doesn't heat up like metal does so there is no burning even on tender plants.

The thing I wish I had done last year that I'm going to do this year is keep a gardening journal. There is a resource for one here on DG, but I think I would enjoy making notes and drawing sketches etc in a little sketchbook journal for the garden. Things I wish I noted last year were planting dates, hardening off times, harvest dates, problems and pests encountered, successes and failures. I think I would have loved to go back to it and laugh at all the things I didn't know later on.

I'm sorry I've gone on and on and rambled, I'm sure many many others have more experience and better advice than I do, I'm just excited to see your enthusiasm about gardening. Gardening seems to be a bit of a refuge for me, I go out there and tend my little plants and spend time in the sunshine and fresh air. It's also exciting for me to find someone so close to my old stomping grounds. I met my husband at Texas A&M and that part of the world and the people from there will always hold a special place in my heart.

Alison

Oh.. I'll attach a picture so you can see a bit of what I'm talking about with the beds. The little short ones are our zucchini ones so we don't go over them with the mower. :)

This message was edited Jun 6, 2011 10:37 PM