Take a peek at my garden today

[EmeraldSkye]

This is a picture of my garden today: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

The raised beds are 3'x16'x12". My husband and I built them this past weekend. Now I have to get some veggie mix soil delivered and start filling them up. The stone raised beds I assembled a few weeks ago. I'm not sure they will last more than one season. We'll see. The bed directly in front of the camera is asparagus. We should start seeing little asparagus shoots soon. The tall green things are Brussels sprouts that I think are going to start flowering instead of making sprouts. You can also see garlic in the far left corner of this shot.

Here's the perspective from the other end of the garden: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Looks like I have a lot of work to do.

[lalbers]

Way cool Em, how will you water them? Looks like wonderful use of your space

[EmeraldSkye]

I haven't set it out yet, but I have drip lines going to spigots that are on valves controlled by an automatic timer - the same one that controls some of our landscaping as a matter of fact. I removed them last fall because I wanted to completely change the layout of the beds. Now I have to get to it... so far I have been relying on the rain but that will stop soon. The area along the fence where the asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and garlic are still have their drip lines. Those beds didn't change. For the boxes I will put main drip tubes in before I fill all the way with dirt. For the stone beds I'll just have to run them over the sides because I didn't think ahead on that one. But I have a feeling I'll be re-doing those at the end of the season anyway, with wooden walls.

Thanks for reminding me about the water before I started to fill the beds!

[EmeraldSkye]

When I get all of my beds done I wonder what would be the best thing to put down in the paths?

[Lochlainn]

what a beautiful garden ! I love the newly built raised beds Not sure if you like the look of it or not, but you could put some landscape fabric down (or cardboard) to prevent weeds, and then put down some gravel or some nice river pebbles. Another option could be straw. At the end of the season you could just rake all of straw up and add it to the compost pile then lay some fresh straw down in the spring and repeat the process. Another option could be to make some trips to your local river and over time collect some nice flat stones to eventually lay into all of the paths

[EmeraldSkye]

It seems like when I sift the soil I get so many stones that I could just line the paths with that! Actually, between the 2 stone beds I did just that. As I screened the soil I dumped the stones in the the dirt outside the boxes. I don't think this technique will provide very good coverage for the larger areas though. I like the landscape fabric/straw idea. I was thinking about doing that with bark mulch but the straw would be easier to refresh/renew. And much lighter to move around than pebbles!

[Lochlainn]

I really like the look of fresh straw. It's a great compost additive as well!

[Daisy73]

Very nice! What kind of wood did you use for the raised beds? I'm thinking of adding some of those myself.

[EmeraldSkye]

We used green Douglas Fir. My husband would not have agreed to spend the money on cedar or redwood. I guess I'll take what I can get.

[norcalmom]

Great garden! I like to re-use materials for garden beds too.Happy planting!