As my vegie garden expands, I've been making various types of garden beds to see what they are like to work with and what fruit and vegies are best suited for each one.
I'm currently growing produce in the following...
- Raised beds that are low to the ground, as well as waist high ones.
- Raised bed, filled Hugelkulter style.
- In ground beds.
- Container growing in large pots, 20lt food grade food buckets and old washing machine drums.
- Also growing in containers, housed in a large hot box over winter.
I've got 2 types of watermelon that are just starting to pop up as seedlings in the green house, so a couple of weeks before I sowed those seeds, I thought that I'd have a go at getting a garden bed going, that would be ready for them in the near future.
Here's how I went about it in pictures with descriptions...
Chose a spot that will get all day sun.
Removed all tape and plastic from the cardboard. Set it out to shape, with overlaps to stop grass and weeds coming through. Hosed it down and soaked it.
Next was a layer of straw. This is mid way and then that got a hose down as well.
Combination of freshly mowed grass and hand pulled grass from just over the back fence. That gets hosed down as well.
Get that grass on there!
Grass!
Grass layer done and hosed in.
Next is a layer of old chicken poop and hay, that I clean out of the chook pens and gets left to age. Yep, I wet that down too.
A nice, thick layer of dried and partially broken down leaves go on next. Then a spray from the hose.
Home made compost went on next. There are some green leaves in it as one of the kids put them in the wrong compost bay. No biggie and yep, I wet this layer down too.
To finish, I put down a layer of sugar cane mulch which is the only thing I purchased (from Bunnings of course) and wet that down. Recycled chicken wire went up at the previous stage, as the chooks would rip this up in no time.
