As we all did early in 2020, we took on projects to make our home spaces filled with hobbies and activities to keep us busy. We began construction on the garden beds for the acreage in April 2020, and had them fully complete and on site right before the long weekend.
Planning
As you dream up your garden spaces, first thing to do would be to measure out your total useable space for the garden. when looking at this, you want to keep in mind a few main points:
Proximity: how far do you want to walk for your morning water? Do you use the space for pets, entertaining or children? Also if you plan to install drip irrigation, that will likely be your deciding factor. Installing water can get pricey.
Direction: Being in the northern hemisphere, you want to be sure that these beds get the most sun possible. A good idea to map out sun is to mark out potential areas, and keep a hour by hour 'sun log' as to where, and how much sun the space receives in the early spring. That will help you determine which way to have them facing and location.
Future Planning: Are you planning on expanding your beds? This factor can affect where you place your beds. Having them in different locations around your property isn't a deal breaker, but something to keep in mind when planning.
Installation
Once the beds were at the acreage, we laid out the landscape fabric with pins and oriented the beds. What is nice about the fabric is that it can be trimmed easily once your border is in place. We then framed up the border and spread the rock around the space.
If you can, try to reduce the amount of weeds you will place your fabric on. In theory, the landscape fabric will kill any unwanted weeds underneath, but thistles are determined, and may try their best to poke through!
Materials
Our 24 x 45 garden space took 8 yards of 3/4- crushed rock. We recommend the crushed rock as it is much easier to walk on and drains well.
Be sure to over lap the landscape fabric by a foot. This will help to prevent any weeds. When you are spreading your gravel/mulch/rock, be careful with tools not to puncture the landscape fabric, that is an easy spot for weeds to then come through!
Border
We used 1x6 pressure treated wood for the border as well as 2x2 garden stakes to secure them in place.
Once your fabric is down, lay out your boards and see if you are happy with the orientation. Once you are, start in one corner and work your way around.
As you get the board up, staple the landscape fabric to the inside of the border boards to keep it sealed. It will help with weeds, as well as keeping what ever material you choose in the border.
Filling the Beds
Each bed was lined with painters fabric and stapled into place. We did this to encourage a sealed bed, as well we wanted to have a lined bed to help retain more water.
In two of the beds, we filled it with a mix of topsoil and steer manure compost. These were intended to grow root vegetables.
In the other two beds, we put perforated drain pipe in the bottom of the beds to help retain water. On the side of the bed, we drilled holes to help with any over flow, as well put a pipe down the side that went to the bottom that we could pour water into directly. These were intended to grow above ground vegetables and flowers (not root or tuber).Once the beds had the pipe, we filled it with a topsoil and steer manure mix.
What we have learned
I haven't used the climbing trellis as much as I thought I would. Our wind at the acreage is just too much until we have more trees there. They are nice to have, and glad that we have them for future use.
Use heavy duty staples to hold the edges of the landscape fabric, and fold the fabric when stapling to make sure it holds.
We added water line holes on two of the beds as an experiment. This was great and would have done this with all the beds, especially for beds with tubing as a base.
Budget (Approximate 2022 prices)
Wood
30–Pressure treated boards 1x6x6 $6.98/each
6 - pressure treated 4x4x6 $18.98/each
4 Pine 2x2x8 $6.28/each
Landscape fabric $1.29/square foot
Crushed Gravel $400.00
Galvanized screws $16.00/100
Total approximate cost: $857.28
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