If you plan on cultivating vegetables in raised garden beds, starting from seeds could save both time and money in the long run. Starting your seeds early allows you to avoid time-consuming transplanting operations while at the same time saving valuable gardening space for other uses.
To save money when purchasing vegetable garden soil, lay a layer of free or inexpensive materials such as cardboard (which suppresses weeds), sticks, leaves or unsprayed straw before adding your garden soil.
Preparation
Before beginning construction of your garden, it’s wise to draw up a rough sketch of its layout. This can give you a better sense of size and space requirements and help prevent unexpected surprises from popping up during this project. Homestead and Chill Garden Planning Toolkit is an invaluable free online resource which includes a plot plan which helps create detailed diagrams to scale of any garden project you undertake.
Once your garden design is finalized, the next step in preparation should be clearing away debris like weeds, rocks and sticks from your beds – this is particularly important as weeds tend to sprout all around this time of year!
Next, enrich the soil with organic matter such as compost, grass clippings or even shredded newspaper. Organic matter helps the soil retain water and nutrients necessary for plant growth – essential elements to consider for success!
Add enough organic matter to your vegetable garden box so that the top six inches of soil are rich and well-draining; most root growth happens here. Organic matter also helps improve soil structure, helping prevent compaction and erosion.
Location for vegetable gardening should receive full sun for six to eight hours daily, providing your plants can be supported with trellises or stakes as they reach maturity. Also keep wind conditions in mind; strong winds may damage delicate vegetables or uproot seedlings from their pots.
Since your vegetable garden space is limited, consider planting the shorter vegetables (lettuce and cilantro) first before increasing heat tolerance with tomatoes and cucumbers. Any remaining space can be filled by Swiss chard or kale for fall harvesting.
Materials
Consider carefully which materials you select when designing a vegetable garden box, as they will come into direct contact with your food crop and some materials can be less safe than others. For instance, pressure treated wood contains arsenic that leaches into the soil. A safer option may be untreated lumber such as cedar or using wood planks made from rot-resistant species like cypress, locust, white oak or fir that provide support to build the bed itself.
If you want to save money, a kit containing all of the parts and tools necessary to build your raised garden bed may be the way to go. They are readily available online or at most home improvement stores; or alternatively it should be relatively straightforward if you possess DIY skills to construct it on your own.
Gardeners typically utilize cardboard or newspaper as an effective weed-suppression measure in their beds, then layer a variety of free natural materials like sticks, leaves, unsprayed straw and grass clippings before adding soil. This approach has become known as the lasagna method and helps reduce costly garden soil costs.
Your wood boards for building the frame of a raised garden bed should either be left untreated, or treated with an environmentally-safe preservative such as Micronized Copper Azole (MCA), which does not contain arsenic and is considered safe for gardens.
If you decide to build your garden box from metal, opt for galvanized or powder-coated steel; aluminum will rust over time. Also be wary about where your source materials came from as they may contain heavy metals that pose health risks.
Design
Size can have a great influence on what can grow in your garden box, with four feet being an optimal width and 12-18 inches being an optimal height for vegetable garden boxes.
Your choice of lumber will have an enormous influence on the design of your garden box. Untreated traditional untreated lumber is ideal, as it doesn’t contain any harmful additives; other varieties, like rough-sawn lumber which is more prone to rotting may require treatment with oil first before being used outdoors.
Enhance your raised vegetable garden with a hoop house by easily creating one yourself using PVC pipes and cloth placed into holes of cinder blocks. A hoop house helps regulate temperature while protecting from frost or snow in cold climates; plus it acts as soil regulator by absorbing heat during the day and dissipating it at night! Cinder block beds also provide beneficial soil regulation features by absorbing and dispersing heat during its daily cycle.
Assembly
Once all the wood has been cut, it’s time to assemble your vegetable garden box. Make sure the corners are squared off and screwed together securely – otherwise weeding and harvesting vegetables could become cumbersome! Additionally, line it with 1/2 inch hardware cloth in order to ward off pests such as mice; simply staple or screw this onto the sides. Finally, fill your garden bed with an organic mixture of soil and compost mixture at least six inches high so your crops can flourish without you needing to bend over!