Having a Jack and the Beanstalk experience… even with a standard ladder I cannot reach the beans at the top. Is there a tool to assist harvesting? (My first tee pee attempt)
Zone 6a and our weather keeps getting cold, hopefully can start planting soon!
Okay Ontario gardeners, I really need some help with this one. My rental spot has a really lovely big backyard space, however the soil quality is quite shite (moss & weeds are the main ground cover, meaning horrible drainage, compact soil and poor nutrition) so I've opted for a raised bed. However.... there is so much tree cover that there is only one spot in the backyard that gets about 3/4 hours of afternoon sunlight with virtually no morning light and another other area that gets some very dappled sunlight throughout the morning and very little in the afternoon. I would really love to grow some stuff and I'm opting for things that do better in shade such as leafy greens, beets, and some shade-thriving herbs but I'm unsure if I should keep the bed in the spot that gets the afternoon sun (picture #1) or move it to the spot that recieves very dappled morning sun (#2 - area to the left side of the yard near the fence). I'm worried that leaving it where it is will leave plants scorched, especially once the summer gets hotter. And with #2 I worry it won't be enough sunlight for them to get a fighting chance. Any help/ advice is appreciated!!
Only took every weekend of the last two months to slowly put this together…
Got some beautiful lettuce coming out of my raised beds
Only took every weekend of the last two months to slowly put this together…
Unfortunately I am only hit with motivation to start gardening when the weather is consistently nice and so I decided to demolish my wooden raised bed as the season was just beginning. I have been meaning to swap out the old rotten bed that was built 15 years ago but never got to it. I impulsively purchased the largest two raised beds (and another I have yet to build) and got them up within two days of starting the project. Now I just need a LOT more soil to fill them. So excited for another season of gardening!
Also—please ignore the patchy grass. I have seeding it on my list of to-dos.
My wife requested a raised bed for a few plants with an arch for loofahs (also new to planting loofah), but today, three days after transplanting healthy green sprouts, the loofah leaves look yellow and burnt.
Think this is just stress from the move, or are they too close to the sides of the bed and getting too hot from the sun on the metal?
For reference, I have a layer of loose rocks at the very bottom, a good bed of fallen sticks/twigs, covered by a few bags of Black Kow raised bed soil.
This bed has a funny story…… I’m really horrible about estimating space and I’m a man (gay, but still 😂) and I bought this 92.5”x92.5”x11.5” raised garden bed thinking it fit in my back yard……. It didn’t 😂.
I planted everything two weeks ago (minus my onion starts that was yesterday). I have several heirloom beans and corn growing in it (my goal is to make my own masa and cornmeal this year).
I also have pics from my patio (I have 3 green stalks in total, but only 2 are planted).
I made this raised bed for my mom. I totally underestimated how much mortar these joints would take (over 100kg/200 lbs).
There are probably 30-40 wheelbarrows of grass clippings and leafs inside of this monstrosity but it was fun to make :)
My husband built some awesome raised beds, but unfortunately we have discovered that mulch mixed with soil in them was not a good choice (the delivery on two separate loads of dirt and mulch was pretty pricey, so he had it dropped off mixed in one load). All the plants are stunted and have yellowed.
I’m wondering how much of the mixed mulch and soil we should remove and replace with garden soil? All of it would be too expensive, but not not replacing enough and having another round of failed plants would be a big expense as well.
I appreciate any helpful suggestions anyone may have. Thank you for your time!
We joined this group hoping to learn, share what’s worked for us in our area, and just be around other people who enjoy growing things. Didn’t really expect so much energy to go toward trying to prove a brighter photo was “fake” or why certain plants shouldn’t exist together.
That part honestly surprised me a little.
Because behind these beds wasn’t money or perfection. It was work. A lot of it.
My wife wanted raised beds for her birthday and we couldn’t afford to just go buy beautiful cedar and have everything delivered. So we used cut cedar from the year before, hauled load after load to an Amish mill, moved endless wheelbarrows of creek rock for drainage, traded labor with a local farmer for soil and manure, and spent weeks learning through mistakes and trial and error.
And somewhere in all that hard work, something good started growing.
I think that’s something people forget sometimes. Most worthwhile things in life are a little rough around the edges. They come from effort, failure, adjusting, learning, and continuing anyway. That’s true in gardening and it’s true in people too.
It’s probably healthier for all of us to spend less time looking for flaws in what others are building and more time encouraging good things when we see them.
Anyway, we’re proud of our little garden. Hope all of yours grow well too.
We ended up doing an emergency run to Canadian tire to get 500 L more soil, and half a yard of , we finally finished and filled out new raised bed.
Every project always takes me 40% more time, money, and material than I expected.
I think we’ll end up putting some boards on the front to hide where the corners meet, then put a ledge on top.
I’m a rookie at this. Thankfully, AI is helping with the planting.
Our neighbors inspired us to try gardening. We were so proud of our initial set up, but kept adding to it. Still a bit of work to do, but we are loving how peaceful it is to work on the garden. Bonus nighttime photo included.