Read The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid Online
Authors: Terri Reid
Raised bed gardening refers to gardening in soil that has been mounded or contained at a higher level than the surrounding soil. Raised bed gardening is an old gardening practice, but it’s currently growing in popularity again because it offers several advantages over simply growing your plants in level ground.
What to Plant?
Once you’ve decided where and how, deciding what to plant will help you with the placement of your plants. For example, if you are planting corn, you’ll want to place it in an area where it won’t shade other plants. If you are planting pumpkins or winter squash or watermelons, you’ll want to plant them in an area where they have plenty of room to spread out. Companion plant by using flowers and herbs that discourage insects. Make the most out of your garden space by growing leafy vegetables like lettuce or chard alongside semi-shading plants like tomatoes. Plant what your family will eat. You might be able to get a bumper crop of radishes, but if your family won’t eat them, they won’t do you any good.
When to Plant?
Your average local spring and fall frost dates are available from your county Extension agent and online through most seed websites. When you pick out seeds, you should also take into account your climate zone, because that will show you how long your average growing season will be. For example, someone in North Carolina will have a longer growing season than someone in North Dakota. Some plants, like peas and spinach, can be planted early in the spring, while frost-tender plants, like tomatoes and peppers, need to be started later in the season.
The USDA Hardiness Zone Map divides North America into eleven separate zones; each zone is 10°F warmer (or colder) in an average winter than the adjacent zone. If you see a hardiness zone in a catalog or plant description, chances are it refers to the USDA map.
A Solar Greenhouse
A greenhouse allows you to buy seeds and start your own plants early. If you have priced vegetable plants you can see how much better it is to spend $2 for a packet of thirty tomato seeds than $4 or $5 per tomato plant.
If you are building your own off-grid home, you should consider adding a greenhouse to the south end of your home. It will not only help with passive solar energy, it will also allow you to tend your plants without having to leave your home.
You can construct a solar greenhouse out of many different materials and you can even use recycled materials, like used and discarded windows and old framing timber. If affordability is an issue, you can construct a fairly good-sized greenhouse with some PVC pipes, framing timbers for a foundation, and heavy-duty plastic. The cost is about $400. Alberta Home Gardening (
www.albertahomegardening.com/how-to-build-an-inexpensive-hoop-style-greenhouse
) has a step-by-step guide to building this kind of greenhouse. If you need to create a greenhouse for under $400, you can do that too. You can actually build a working greenhouse from two-liter plastic bottles.
ReapScotland.org.uk
offers a PDF along with photos on how this greenhouse is built. You can find the directions at
http://reapscotland.org.uk/Plastic_Bottle_Greenhouse_Instructions_2004.pdf
.
You can also create a “cold frame” to extend your gardening season on either end. A cold frame is a large wooden bottomless rectangular box—8 inches tall on one end and 12 inches tall on the other. You lay glass frames or even plastic over the top of the frame to keep in the heat. Cold frames actually create a microclimate that can be a zone and a half warmer than your garden’s zone.
Where did cold frames come from?
Cold frames were originally designed as an adjunct to a heated greenhouse. The concept was that once the seedlings had been grown in the heated greenhouse, they could be hardened off .n the adjoining unheated cold frame.
The correct creation of the frame is important. You want to be sure it’s positioned so the back of the frame is cut higher than the front in order to catch the angles of the winter sun. Placing your frames in an area where they have full sun is best. Surprisingly, even in cold weather, on a sunny day your cold frame could absorb too much sun. You should keep the
internal temperature of your cold frame near 60°F. You can vent the frame to prevent overheating. Venting simply means lifting one edge of the glass frame in order to let a little cold air circulate inside the frame until the desired temperature is reached. There are temperature-activated ventilating arms available if you are unable to watch the frames yourself.
You can start some of your hardier plants in your cold frame in the spring and in the fall you also can grow vegetables, like spinach and certain lettuce varieties, that thrive in the cold. You can actually have vegetables, depending on your climate, through mid-December.
Preparing the Land
To produce soil that yields the best garden, you should begin with a soil test. You can order a soil test from most online gardening sites, or buy one at a local garden store. The test will measure the pH level of the soil as well as the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash the soil contains. Each of these components plays an important role in the health of your garden:
Once you determine the nutrient needs of your soil, you should apply the proper fertilizer to meet those needs.
Tilling the soil before planting breaks up the ground, works fertilizer into the soil, and fights weeds. It allows the young sprouts of the seeds you plant to break through the soil. In addition, when you till in last year’s leftover vines and stalks, you are adding what’s called
green manure
to your garden and increasing the nutrients in your soil.
Weeds are the adversary of every gardener. Your initial tilling will destroy the weeds that have taken root by early spring, and with continued tilling, you will keep the weed seeds from taking root.
Another source of green manure is a
cover crop
, which is a crop planted specifically to be tilled into the soil. Usually green manure is planted in the fall, after your garden has been harvested. But you can also plant green manure on areas of your garden that are troubled with an influx of weeds. Cover crops help choke out the weeds and leave the soil ready for planting. There are two types of green manure: legumes, like alfalfa, clover, and soybeans; and non-legumes like ryegrass, buckwheat, and oats. It’s a good practice to use more than one kind of green manure and rotate your choices from year to year.
If you plant cover crops in the fall, till them into the ground in the spring before you begin to plant. If you plant cover crops during the spring to help choke out weeds, you can till the cover crops in just before you want to use the area for another crop.
Animal manure is another way to add nutrients into your soil. The most common is cow, sheep, and chicken manure. You need to be sure that any manure you apply to your garden has aged at least six months to a year. You want to age manure for several reasons. First, fresh manure is “hot” (it has high levels of nitrogen) and it will burn your plants. Chicken manure is especially known for being hot and should be aged for a year. Also, fresh manure can carry bacteria that can cause illness and may have live weed seeds in it, especially if it’s cow or sheep manure. Spreading this on your garden will be like planting weeds among your vegetables.
You will want to avoid manure from pigs, domestic animals like dogs and cats, or human manure. These all have a potential for carrying disease.
Planting Your Garden
Now is the time to put all of your planning to work. Using the garden layout you drew up for your garden, place stakes to mark out where different rows will be planted. The next step is for you to build any trellises or string lines, or set in solid stakes, for any climbing plants like peas, zucchinis, or beans. In the area where you have dedicated space for your spreading plants, like pumpkins and watermelons, build mounds several feet apart from each other, depending on the need of the specific plant variety. Be sure to create specific pathways right away, so you aren’t tromping all over the garden and compacting the soil and you won’t inadvertently step on your seedbed.
The day before you plant, water your garden thoroughly. Start planting by reading the back of the seed packet to ensure you understand the planting depth and seed spacing. Seeds planted too deep or too close together will not do well. Be sure to place a marker at the end of each row with the name and variety of seed you have sown. If you change varieties in the middle of a row, place a marker there too.
Stretch a string between the two stakes you set to mark the row and create a V-shaped furrow with the corner of your hoe. Make sure the depth of the furrow corresponds with the planting depth recommended on the seed packet. Tear the corner of the seed package and carefully tap the package as you move down the row, dispensing the seeds evenly. Larger seeds can be placed individually in the row at the appropriate spacing. Plant some extra seeds in each row to allow for failed germination. You can thin these out later if needed.