Let it be known that I am not any kind of gardening professional or aspiring homesteader. I grew up with a mom who always had a veggie patch, worked in a greenhouse during college, and simply enjoy eating local food 🙂 Because let’s face it, no tomato from the grocery can ever compare to one picked five minutes ago in your garden!
This year we put in our first raised beds in our “new” house–we’ve been here since March 2023–and thanks to a cool, rainy spring and start to summer, our plants are thriving. We’ve picked dozens of strawberries, plenty of kale and lettuce, the green beans are starting to ripen by the handful and the zucchini are quickly multiplying.
In this post I’m going to share (1) our garden setup that’s helped us avoid pests so far this year, (2) what we’d change in terms of our setup for next year, and (3) present and future planting plans.
Our Setup This Year
We bought raised bed kits from Gardener’s Supply: two 4’x8′ beds and one 2’x8′ bed. The beds were easy to assemble and fill, using the topsoil/compost mix that we ordered in bulk from Minnesota Topsoil. I will definitely be purchasing from both GC and MN Topsoil again in the future.
We arranged the beds in a rectangle with enough space to mow between them. Actually, though, we haven’t mowed in the enclosure at all–and the flowering “weeds” that have come up are great for attracting bees We had the whole area checked by utility companies for pipes/wires underground, then drove 6′ fence stakes into the ground around the beds. We added a 5′ chicken wire fence to fend off the rabbits/deer/any other curious large critters, using landscape staples around the bottom so nothing can crawl underneath. So far we haven’t had any pest problems using this setup.
We also threw on some plastic netting over our squash plants when we noticed the blossoms were getting munched. And, we protected our strawberry plants from the birds with cloches. Some plants need a little extra protection!
What We’ll Change
Next year we hope to:
- Add two more raised beds. I would love to add a bed for potatoes (which are space intensive) and devote an entire bed to berries–overwintering our current strawberry plants, adding more of them and also trying a blueberry bush or two. Needless to say, cloches won’t be practical for that many plants, so I plan to expand our netting setup to be cover the entire bed.
- Add raspberry bushes elsewhere in our yard. My mom has been growing raspberries for a few years now and they’ve taken off this year. They are low-work, high-output at this point. I’d love to save a few dollars on berries. My kids are berry fiends and well, prices these days aren’t budget-friendly!
- Remember to fertilize regularly. We use an organic edible plant fertilizer from our local garden store. I’ve noticed such a difference in plant growth since we’ve been using the quantity/frequency recommended by the package.
- Spread plants out more. This is definitely a rookie gardener mistake. We underestimated how much the tomatoes would grow, so the peppers are completely shaded out now. One squash plant is growing into the carrots and I’m not sure whether to clip the rogue vine or let the carrots go! We experimented with a lot of foods this year… probably too many 😛
What We’re Growing (and Want to Grow)
This year’s lineup includes:
- Bed 1: Carrots, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, zucchini, cucumbers
- Bed 2: Herbs (mint, basil, oregano, chives) and greens (lettuce and kale)
- Bed 3: Tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, green beans
Next year, I’d to add:
- More berries: strawberries and blueberries, raspberries elsewhere in the yard
- Potatoes
- More basil (would love to be able to make homemade pesto and freeze it)
- Garlic (for the pesto)–we tried this year but didn’t plant it at the right time. Apparently garlic should be planted in the fall!
- Different squashes, depending on what is productive or not this year
What’s in your garden this year? Or what have you been enjoying from the farmer’s market?
xx Claire