Tag: Organic gardening

Growing season 2024: The compost bed in our garden 3

Just some notes on what we did and what we should have done differently

After winter we rotary tilled some cow manure in this long garden bed and early Mai we rotary tilled this garden bed again in preparation to sow. The soil looks promising.

Clean garden bed ready to be sowed in

I sowed about 2 weeks later and as you can see in the next picture I should have removed some weeds first and the grass (and what ever else is growing there) around the edge of the garden bed should have been mowed long before as well.

Messy looking garden bed with hay mulch in a small corner

After sowing I covered the bed with old hay.

I only grew green beans, peas and flowers here. The broccoli and cauliflower did not sprout. The flowers where for the insects and I used them as a divider between the different variations of the vegetables. This bed is 1.8 Meters wide and I sowed 3 rows of green beans beside each other from about 10 meters long. The green beans did well and I was able to harvest more than enough to last us until the next growing season. The only thing I should do differently is have more space between the rows, since the density made it difficult for me to harvest and I should succession sow, since it was really too much to harvest at one time.

A garden bed packed with green bean plants and a harvesting tub with harvested green beans

The peas where ok, but I really should start to trellis the peas. It is not really beneficial for the pea plants to lay on the ground. A lot of the pots looked unappetizing and got eaten at by slugs due to that, but the peas we could harvest tasted so good. There is nothing like home grown peas.

Pea plants lying on the ground with pea pots eaten at by slugs

Another attempt in dealing with the couch grass

Remodelling our Garden 2, planting perennials densely and removing the raised beds which have no fruit trees

The raised beds

Our garden 2 with the raised beds has been very overwhelming with the couch grass growing threw every where. We had already removed some beds that where already completely overgrown with couch grass as you can see in this post. Constantly pulling out the couch grass in this many raised beds is simply to time consuming. Another problem was that our lawn mower tractor did not fit in between the raised beds to keep the grass on the walking paths low. Therefore we decided to change the purpose and our approach in garden 2 completely.

Our garden 2 will be for the fruit trees, which are already there, flowers, strawberries and herbs. Only the vegetable patch will be for growing annual plants, mainly vegetables.. The plan is to have the raised beds, the ones with the fruit trees in them, so full with plants that there will be no room for the couch grass. The raised beds without fruit trees will be removed, so the pathway maintenance will be much easier.

Raised bed with chives, strawberries and iris
Raised bed with chives, strawberries and iris

This means a lot of plants, mainly strawberries, need to find a new home. The currant bushes found a new spot in between the blueberry bushes in the berry garden. The herbs are combined with strawberries and found places in the raised beds which are staying. We have not finished this work yet, but we are getting there.

Newly planted raised bed with peppermint and some garlic
This peppermint was planted in the spring. By fall the roots where grown trough the entire raised bed.

The vegetable patch in our garden 2

The vegetable patch is very much taken over by the couch grass, but still gave us a nice harvest of onions, red beets, chard, parsnip and even some tomatoes from a volunteer tomato plant.

A very overgrown garden patch with red beets, onions, chard, phacelia and couch grass
A very overgrown garden patch with red beets, onions, chard, phacelia and couch grass

We did not rotary till the vegetable patch last year and the couch grass took over most of the patch. We will have to do something about that. With the treeless raised beds being removed we will also extend the vegetable patch. Since also the kid’s raised beds will be filled with perennials, they will have the vegetable patch for there annual plant wishes the coming growing season.

Chard and an onion ready for harvest in an overgrown garden patch
Chard and an onion ready for harvest in an overgrown garden patch
A big phacelia with a lot of couch grass behind it
A beautiful big phacelia giving colour to the vegetable patch
Tomato plant cooping in an overgrown garden patch
Volunteer tomato plant cooping in an overgrown garden patch
Freshly harvested onions and red beets displayed on a wooden table
Part of the harvest

Findings to the first growing season of our planter tables

How did the planter tables produce for us? Did they hold water?

I have been a bit disappointed with the results. The soil was not holding water very well, despite the fact that I hat put in so much sheep wool and woodchips. When I watered the planter tables most of the water would drip out of the bottom, so that did not bring much.

The plants in the planter table did not grow very good. It looked nice and green, but there was not really much to harvest.

A planter table filled with plants, looking nice and green

We had a very tiny Hokkaido pumpkin and a lot of tiny red beets. For a direct comparison I had planted some parsley seedlings in the planter table and in the garden at the same time. I forgot to take a picture of the parsley in the garden, but I actually harvested of those twice as to harvesting nothing from the parsley in the planter table, since these hardly grew.

Very small parsley

The only thing that kept doing well, even in summer with little water and a lot of heat, was chard.

Obviously we only made the planter tables last spring and the soil has to set and develop first, so we are not going to jump to conclusions. In the spring we will ad some compost and mulch in form of woodchips to the planter tables and we have to think about what we are going to plant in there. I think plants that need a lot of nutrients and/ or water are not a good choice. We are probably going to plant some flowers, herbs and some lettuce, but who knows what I will think of until spring comes.