Our Kitchen Garden

Making a kitchen garden

Last year I had a raised bed made from old fencing, 4 tire beds and 2 pallets. Oh, can’t forget the failed straw bale gardening experiment. This year I went bigger. I now have 4 raised beds, loads of tires next to the fence for vining plants (gourds, cantelope and cucumber), a lettuce bed and a carrot tire. I think I’ll get a few more tires. Some things did rather well in them. I’ll make more raised beds as I have time and resources. All of the things I use in my kitchen garden are free.

Oh, can’t forget the other part of the kitchen garden, the sunken corn hugel. See the linked post for more on that.

I started with cardboard, lots of it. And tires, lots of them.

IMG_1254

This is the lettuce bed. I laid out cardboard and then put compost over it. I also have cardboard under and compost in all the tires.

IMG_1363 IMG_1366 IMG_1374 IMG_1375

The lettuce is already coming up. I had to chase a chicken out of it. Chased her all the way around the house. Then I fenced it like I should have to begin with.

If you haven’t guessed yet, I am not the best at planned design. So I simply cut all the wood in half. The new raised beds are as large as the wood would allow and that’s that.

IMG_1423 IMG_1431 IMG_1432

I have cucumber and leeks in the big one, eggplant in another and okra in the last one. I have cardboard going around and in between the raised beds. Dirt is on it to keep it from blowing away. When I get it done enough I’ll be putting a nice layer of straw/hay to help with the ease of walking and to suppress weeds. Last year the surrounding plants made it almost impossible to reach the garden. I’m planning for that this year!

IMG_1424 IMG_1429

Here is a shot of Son’s photo bomb and asparagus in last years raised bed. Daughter is in the backpack which she loves. Oddly she’s not much for the outdoors and doesn’t like to walk much. Our ground is rather uneven and she horribly takes after my side of the family in the grace department.

IMG_1428 IMG_1427 IMG_1426

I started some of the gourds inside. I have birdhouse gourds, apple gourds, giant gourds and cantaloupe. I’m hoping to make some birdhouses out of all the varieties- minus the cantaloupe.

 

This is pretty much it. We do have squash planted all over on the berms and potatoes as well. I think we are almost ready for growing!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *