Garden Bed

We’re taking another stab at this gardening thing. Each attempt has provided better results but we need to kick it up a notch. The last time we used the native soil in our backyard we learned that the garden would not drain properly – even with additional garden soil and compost – and the plants were constantly fighting fungal diseases. The best solution to this problem is to increase the depth of good soil; which means a garden bed.

I searched craigslist for a couple days for free lumber and came upon some the other week. It was rather convenient that it was actually wooden crates for transporting glass; it was just the right size so we just had to break it down and transport it home (thanks for the help, Marc)!

We decided on trying a no-dig approach as described here. Playing it by the book, I was able to find Back to Nature’s chicken manure and cotton bur compost at Barton Springs Nursery and the garden soil, decomposed granite, and pine needle mulch at The Natural Gardener. You can get a significant price break on a variety of soils, composts, and mulches at The Natural Gardener if you bag it yourself.

All in all, it came out to be around $1.72/sq. ft. for materials. Subsequent plantings won’t be quite as expensive as we’ll use our community’s free compost and occasionally add another layer of manure with fresh soil. You could also bring the price down a bit by using chipped cedar instead of the pine needles for mulch.

The question now is what to plant?