One woman’s garden – Phase 1
This is the side of my house. For five years, it has been a bed of dirt. Mainly, we didn’t want to plant anything there until the gutter was fixed because it would only wash out the bed. Well, the gutter is fixed now.
It’s close to the house, which doesn’t bode well for the quality of the dirt there. So it seemed like a great place to build a raised bed for some vegetables this summer. That way I can put in some new soil and organic matter. Doesn’t look too difficult to build such a bed there, right? Well, here’s the problem:
It’s on a slope.
At any rate, we hauled out my Grandfather’s old circular saw and bought a new drill that wasn’t too wimpy to drive 1/2-inch holes in treated landscaping timbers. And now we are only two lengths short of finishing the raised bed. After that, I’ll have to line the inside of the timbers with plastic, since they are treated and I don’t want those chemicals in my vegetable garden.
Once we finish up the bed, I’ll post pictures. And then it will be time to talk about what to plant. I may have some sun issues …
April 9, 2009 - 12:03 PM
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We’re planning ours for a wide-open spot next to our house that gets plenty of sun. Our issue is rock. Lots of rock. And not little rocks either, we’re talking multi-ton slabs of rock…so we’ll be building a raised bed too. But we’ll need a dumptruck full of good soil to fill in where we want the garden, so it’s still going to be a year or 2 before we can get fresh produce by walking out our front door…but it will be worth it!
Although yours is a brick house, there remains a chance that the eaves/trim could have been painted with lead-based paint (depending on the age of your house). The Virginia Cooperative Extension Office offers some suggestions:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/envirohort/426-312/426-312.html
I have a raised bed on the side of my house, it only gets sun from mid- to late afternoon. Weeds grow very well in that bed……and a few rose bushes.
One year I planted cukes and tomatoes across from that bed, got a lot more sun there. The neighbors kidded me about my “farm” but the cukes and tomatoes were good.
We are lucky to have good soil in our gardens, my problem is getting the motivation to take care of them. There’s so much to do. New Mulch here, new mulch there. I am trying to plan what kind of vegetables I want to grow. I have a 10′ by 25′ garden space for my vegetables and we mulch it. It works great for keeping the weeds out. So I usually plant tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers,and what ever else that sparks my interest. I’ve tried corn, green beans, cucumbers. Green beans and cucumbers did wonderful. Next time to save room I would plant those with a cage around them or fence so they could climb up it and they wouldn’t take up as much room. One year I planted different colored marigold plants all around and in my garden, they are supposed to be a natural bug repellent. Seemed to work pretty good and made the garden colorful. Just a few ideas.