Okay, I have this slope in front of the new barn. The slope will have sun most of the day (late afternoon shade). There is a lot of broken slate in the soil here, soil ,which I can ,of course, amend. I would like to put this to use for vegetables, especially pumpkins and watermelon. Any suggestions for gardening on this slope?
Does it slope to the south? Elliot Coleman talked about European gardeners using south facing slopes with great success.
UH UH,,, facing east
Alrighty, then...better wait for someone who knows more than me to come along. LOL! BTW, nice looking barn.
if you have a great water supply you are ready to go - first of all i would put up a real good fence to keep out all deer, sheep, goats, etc.
then i would double dig beds along the contour of the slope(left to right in your foto) , amending heavily with compost-
then plant lots of pumpkins and squash the first year but skip melons - you want to start off with a crop that is easier and that has a higher success rate so you do not get discouraged - also look into growing some cover crops to feed and build the soil - if you have more questions go to
https://sites.google.com/site/cinagroinc/home
and i'll be glad to offer more help at no cost - good luck - mark
Thank you very much, I will take your advice!
Bluebunn, as you can see, my entire property is on a steep slope. I have terraced my veggie garden and had great results. This picture was taken before I planted anything. The next two will show how it looked in August.
Good luck. I have level land envy, because it is so much harder on the slope. But it's worth it.
This picture shows my peas, beans, tomatoes and more.
Here are my winter squash, pumpkins, and melons. The slope seems to be great for these plants because they can just trail down the hill. I'm actually a beginner at this, but maybe this might give you some ideas.
I have much the same problem at my house. My backyard slopes about 10' over a 80' run with one spot at one to two. I was thinking of terracing also but a few attempts at digging revealed my "soil" was rock and red clay. Decided to go with raised beds.
While at Lowes a month ago I found "All new square foot gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. The improved SFG method uses small raised beds filled with "perfect" soil - no digging and amending required. This sounds so promising I'm going to try SFG first before going the traditional row gardening methods. With all the rock in your soil and your slope, I suggest you look into SFG before you break ground on a row garden.
Slopesower, Fantasic job, I am encouraged! I love the idea of the pumpkins trailing down the slope.
Soddy Daisy (great name!) I think I am going to do a combination of raised beds and slopes.The steep slope right in front of the barn will be for the squashes and pumpkins. All the slopes beneath it will be terraced and raised beds. Thank you one and all! I hope to have some great photos to post this summer.
for the folks from soddy daisy & rutledge, tn - how did your gardens turn out this past year? i have slope also (full sun) and rocky, clay under a few inches of topsoil. (had a fair to middlin garden last year - okra & field peas did best.)
i have added compost & tilled in, but am hoping to do better this year by a combination of terracing & lasagna gardening. (don't think i can afford enough topsoil to go totally raised bed).
has anyone tried this? i hope it will help with the water runoff problem of last year.
would appreciate any suggestion on the terracing. thank you.
I'm not in Tn. but I had the same problem with my first home. the lot was 350' long with the back150 and front 50 being fairly level and having nice oaks. A singal wide mobile sat in front of and slightly under the oaks in the back, so I had a nice shady back yard leaving the middle front as the only place to put a garden and thats where the biggest drop was. I started at the lowest end and made a 4x8 frame from 2x6's and leveled it on the ground and skimmed the topsoil from around it (leveling the pathway) and put in the bed and added leaves, grass clippings, and manure. I made the path 3' wide and used landscape timber to biuld a retaining wall (I think it was 3 high) I set the front of the next bed on top of the wall and did the same thing working my way up the slope till I had 3 beds then I went back to the bottom and started another row w/ 4x4 frames then a 3rd row of beds. Around the sides and back I used timber to make walls and made an 18" bed around the outside of them that I planted flowers in. It took almost 2 years to complete and I was making compost at the same time so by the time it was all done I had pretty good soil and from the street it was really pretty. It was a lot of work but well worth it.
I garden on a slope, but not as steep as the one slopesower has.
This year I decided to make each garden bed as level as possible, so I used a "line level" on a length of string and determined that I could use six-inch boards on the "up-side" and ten-inch boards on the "down-side".
I garden next to a big ditch. When I water my garden, the ditch fills up with water, & my garden is dry. I do have sand. Could that be the problem with my losing water?
flsusie from nprichey & honeybee from charlotte, i think i get the idea.
sitting the second "frame" on top of the first & so on up the hill makes great sense with a minimum of lumber involved, and using the taller board on the low side keeps the dirt from going up and over.
thanks so much.
jollygirl4 -
taller board on the low side keeps the dirt from going up and over.
Behillman,
Is there any way you can work more organic material/compost into your garden area? That should help some in retaining water. From what you've described, is sounds like the sandy garden area just drains right through to the ditch.
David
I'm thinking of planting something really close to the ditch that loves water. Does anyone know what kind of plant or vegetable loves water.
behillman - try a Google search for "Bog Plants" - maybe you'll get some inspiration :)
If not, try: "Rain Garden"
The only plants I can think of that like wet feet are certain Irises.
