2025 Garden season

[Del_]

My wife and I are looking to start our first one this year. For sure some taters, maters, and squash/zucchini. Nice to know AS has a gardening forum! I'll post a thread so as not to hijack this one, since I've got many questions.

Welcome aboard!

Here's a tool that revolutionized my way of gardening.

In your area raised beds are only necessary if you have a very high water table and saturated soil is a problem.

In the north raised beds speed soil warming but in the south the soil often gets to warm. Plus there is the money spent on making raised beds. Buy a Meadow Creature Broadfork instead!

 

[JSMississippi]

Welcome aboard!

Here's a tool that revolutionized my way of gardening.

In your area raised beds are only necessary if you have a very high water table and saturated soil is a problem.

Now that's a cool tool. Unfortunately saturated soil is a problem for us, especially in the spring and into the summer.

 

[sonny580]

When they first came out,-- we got a pack of 10 Earthboxes. Still use some of them today in the greenhouse to start seeds in. We have 3 4'x10' raised beds on an old concrete floor the we dont use anymore. ( no time to water every day) BUT they worked.
Most of the methods and varieties are area specific, so check locally for more ideas.
I am wanting to reduce my 4.5 acre garden down to 2 18'x100' x9' high tunnels. Main problem here is wind so til I try we wont know if it works or not.
Having too much other stuff to do the tunnels would let us garden when its raining out or has rained and muddy and cant work outside.
Not sure the varieties for the north would work for you. Some probably will but again its a test the first year to see what works.

 

[Del_]

It's been a decade of so but we had 32 4ft. X 16ft. raised beds back in the day.

I started with raised bed gardening back in 1980.

Today we call them beds and they are not raised. They are dug 16 inches deep using a broad fork. We don't walk in them and they have a stake at each end marking their locations. Our beds today are 40 inches X 50 ft with 20 inch walkways.

 

[JSMississippi]

That's a fine setup you have, looks very thought out! So I am guessing for most small plants, 36"-48" is enough for two rows to not starve each other out?

 

[sonny580]

I have always planted my rows 48" for regular crops and 72" for potatoes to have enough to make the mounds with as plants grow.
With 4.5 acres I figure why bunch everything close. Smaller gardens would need closer rows. Neighbor goes with 24" rows mostly and some down to 16". Thats way too close for me! lol!

 

[Del_]

That's a fine setup you have, looks very thought out! So I am guessing for most small plants, 36"-48" is enough for two rows to not starve each other out?

For plants like broccoli we plant two rows in our 40 inch wide beds. Remember our beds are 'invisible', but always in the exact location. So I run a string down the center of a bed on the permanent center stakes and and stagger two rows of broccoli with each row being 10 inches off of the center line. This leaves 10 inches to the side of the bed and then 20 inches that is walkway. So if two beds side by side planted with broccoli there would be 10"+20"+10" to the next staggered row of broccoli. I never plant two beds of broccoli side by side because we just don't need that much broccoli. I using broccoli to show how we plant.

Here's two photos of a 40" X 50ft. bed plant in two kind of broccoli. Each staggered row has just one broccoli cultivar. You can see the slight difference. I grow broccoli from seed, much cheaper than buying transplants. What I'm doing here is comparing broccoli cultivars to find which one best meets our needs.

Am I over thinking it?

Of course I am.

The nursery pots are for collecting rock we find in our garden.

The planting early on:

The planting later in the season:

Our broad fork is 20 inches wide:

 

[JSMississippi]

For plants like broccoli we plant two rows in our 40 inch wide beds. Remember our beds are 'invisible', but always in the exact location. So I run a string down the center of a bed on the permanent center stakes and and stagger two rows of broccoli with each row being 10 inches off of the center line. This leaves 10 inches to the side of the bed and then 20 inches that is walkway. So is two beds side by side planted with broccoli there would be 10"+20"+10" to the next staggered row of broccoli. I never plant two beds of broccoli side by side because we just don't need that much broccoli. I using broccoli to show how we plant.

Here's two photos of a 40" X 50ft. bed plant in two kind of broccoli. Each staggered row has just one broccoli cultivar. You can see the slight difference. I grow broccoli from seed, much cheaper than buying transplants. What I'm doing here is comparing broccoli cultivars to find which one best meets our needs.

Am I over thinking it?

Of course I am.

The planting early on:

View attachment 1234186

The planting later in the season:

View attachment 1234185



Our broad fork is 20 inches wide:

View attachment 1234187

Hadn't thought about staggering, but that makes a lot of sense.

 

[farmer steve]

For plants like broccoli we plant two rows in our 40 inch wide beds. Remember our beds are 'invisible', but always in the exact location. So I run a string down the center of a bed on the permanent center stakes and and stagger two rows of broccoli with each row being 10 inches off of the center line. This leaves 10 inches to the side of the bed and then 20 inches that is walkway. So is two beds side by side planted with broccoli there would be 10"+20"+10" to the next staggered row of broccoli. I never plant two beds of broccoli side by side because we just don't need that much broccoli. I using broccoli to show how we plant.

Here's two photos of a 40" X 50ft. bed plant in two kind of broccoli. Each staggered row has just one broccoli cultivar. You can see the slight difference. I grow broccoli from seed, much cheaper than buying transplants. What I'm doing here is comparing broccoli cultivars to find which one best meets our needs.

Am I over thinking it?

Of course I am.

The planting early on:

View attachment 1234186

The planting later in the season:

View attachment 1234185



Our broad fork is 20 inches wide:

View attachment 1234187

Broccoli info for ya Del.
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/broccoli/ebreeding.php
https://blogs.cornell.edu/easternbroccoliproject/main/production/varieties/

 

[Del_]

Broccoli info for ya Del.
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/broccoli/ebreeding.php
https://blogs.cornell.edu/easternbroccoliproject/main/production/varieties/

Great info!

Thanks Steve.

I like how the trials are set up state by state. I'll be giving some of those a try soon.

We've found we like the types that produce a smaller heads but produce prolific florets afterwards. It takes considerable time harvesting florets. Too much broccoli at once and I'm giving it away. I should sell some at a local market but it's time consuming.

It's a totally different game growing for market where large crowns maturing in a short time frame are optimum.

And different still if one is into seed saving. (we don't save broccoli seed, even the open pollenated types, as seed is so cheap.

 

[kenmbz]

I only have 2 small raised beds, with 7 foot chicken wire stapled to the ground.
The deer have gotten to everything in the bigger garden, so I went small.

Just was trimming out the figs, pears and planted 2 apple and one more peach to replace the one that died (so 2 peach total).
I have had trouble with pears here, think not enough sun.
One pear is too tall so I need to lop off the top before the weather gets warmer.

Last years tomatoes and blackberries came in great, but for the first year the radishes did not grow right.
Did amend the soil, will need to do more.
Peppers came in ok, sweet peppers were small, hot peppers were normal size.

Might try some corn this year, wonder if it will survive the deer, groundhog etc. as that will not be fenced in.

 

[Del_]

I only have 2 small raised beds, with 7 foot chicken wire stapled to the ground.
The deer have gotten to everything in the bigger garden, so I went small.

Just was trimming out the figs, pears and planted 2 apple and one more peach to replace the one that died (so 2 peach total).
I have had trouble with pears here, think not enough sun.
One pear is too tall so I need to lop off the top before the weather gets warmer.

Last years tomatoes and blackberries came in great, but for the first year the radishes did not grow right.
Did amend the soil, will need to do more.
Peppers came in ok, sweet peppers were small, hot peppers were normal size.

Might try some corn this year, wonder if it will survive the deer, groundhog etc. as that will not be fenced in.

I've never had trouble with deer and corn.

I had a ground hog a couple of months back. They can do real damage to almost anything.

My ground hog was a real digger and so quick to see me coming for him(her). I got it's mate over the summer.

Got him with a .22 from a second story window and fed him to the buzzards. I had tried to sneak up on him a half dozen times or so to no avail.

 

[Let her rip]

I made my first hugelkultur raised beds last year they turned out great would recommend to anyone. Filled the bottom half of the beds with decaying wood then filled them with a mulch mixture of chopped leaves, grass cuttings, soil and compost. Had to water down the mixture as I was filling so that it got into the gaps between the wood. The idea is that the wood acts like a water battery which is why decaying wood is better as it holds more water. It releases nutrients as it breaks down and also harbours beneficial fungi which transport water and nutrients to the plants too. I planted some tomatoes and let them grow without pruning until there was no more space for them and then started pruning the suckers to stop them overwhelming the infrastructure. There was a drought here last summer, no rain for months and temperatures up to 40c. The tomatoes loved it and we got hundreds of them, had no issues with them becoming dehydrated. Also used wood chip mulch over the top of one of the beds and it stopped 99% of the weeds coming through compared to the other bed without woodchips which had plenty. The wood chips also moderate the soil temperature keeping it cooler and retaining moisture

 

[Let her rip]

Some examples of how good wood chip mulch is. Half of this rose bed had woodchip mulch and hardly any weeds, the other half looks like a jungle. In the second video I moved some old wood that had been sitting there for years and compared to the other soil that was rock hard and bone dry the soil beneath the wood was dark, rich, soft, cool and moist