It’s time to prepare your garden!

It’s a good idea to prepare your gardening spaces and beds a few weeks ahead of planting time. The soil, compost and amendments will have time to settle in and the microbial life will have time to grow and create healthy structures. Additionally, if you prepare your beds early you can remove any weeds that germinate and grow before transplanting or sowing seeds.

We talked in some detail in our April 7th Zoom tutorial session about how to prep your garden space. For a replay of that session and more helpful resources go to our member page, the garden gate.

Basic Garden Prep Steps:

1. Choose an area that has at least 6 hours of sunlight and is accessible to a water source.

2. Decide whether you want to build a raised bed or a mounded bed.

3. Get a few good tools like a D-handled digging fork, a pointed shovel, and a trowel. Decent tools can be found at estate sales, on-line, and at hardware stores. For a list of our favorites see our Resources page.

4. With the fork penetrate the soil as deep as possible. If possible turn over the sod and lay in in the garden upside down.

5. Do a soil test [and add the recommended organic amendments.] 6. Cover the area with overlapping cardboard or several layers of newsprint, water them thoroughly, and then cover with a few inches of compost, the soil that you find under decomposing leaves, and maybe some topsoil acquired from other sources. Let it sit and let the worms and microbes go to work.

7. Think about whether you have animals that could eat your plants and how you will keep them out.

Simple Raised Bed Construction

Our collections will fit into a 32 sq ft area and generally, more space will be needed if you add any more plants. A 12″ bed is generally sufficient if your plants have good soil underneath (18-24″ for asphalt or concrete bottoms).

For the most simple 4’X8′ bed you’ll need:

• (4) 3×3 posts cut to the height of your bed (~12″)
• (2) 2×8, 2×10, or 2×12 or (4) 2×4 or 2×6 boards cut 4′ long
• (2) 2×8, 2×10, or 2×12 or (4) 2×4 or 2×6 boards cut 8′ long
• 3″ exterior or deck screws

Make sure your wood is untreated and unpainted. If you want to stain it use a food safe product like tung oil or linseed oil.

My super rustic, almost free pallet garden beds

Or go the route I took and spend almost no money at all and build a very rustic pallet bed:

• Find some pallets on the side of the road or ask at a warehouse if you can take some off their hands. Make sure to only take ones that are not pressure treated (those are usually much heavier and have some coloring, like a blueish tint). Also look for ones that don’t have excessive boards and nails all over them because they’ll break your saw blade and then fall apart.
• Cut them in thirds with a circular saw.
• Dig a trench around your bed, about 4-6″ deep. Dig holes at the corners and every ~3′ in the center if you will be using log posts. Or you can get some 2-3′ rebar. The idea is to anchor your pallet pieces very well because they are heavy and you don’t want the soil to push them over.
• Set your pallets in the trench and anchor them with corner posts, rebar, or whatever ingenious idea you come up with.
• I used small lengths of locust wood, which is rot resistant and hard as nails when dry. Literally. They broke my drill bit. I ended up nailing the sides together and it’s sturdy enough and perfectly fine.

The fun thing about this bed is you can fill the center of the pallets with soil and plant herbs, flowers, or strawberries!