Raised Garden Beds

[RobDeer 45]

Anyone who has experience, please give me advice on things to help with a successful vegetable garden. I did a couple raised beds in the backyard. I've been planting in pots for the last few years because we've moved around and haven't been able to establish a garden.

 

Ok, I've already assembled the beds and I'm going to put some wire mesh underneath to keep moles from getting in there. Seems there are a lot of moles in the neighbor's yards and they venture over sometimes. I'm getting a mix of top soil, mushroom mix (I think that's what it is called) and manure, delivered today.

 

Any suggestions before the dirt goes in, for the raised beds?

 

Any tips on maximizing space? Mainly Tomatoes, Cucumbers, herbs, lettuce, and a couple random things like carrots and maybe a pepper plant or two.

 

Any advice with deer would be great. We have a group of 6 that walk by our yard every morning and evening. They usually don't come in our yard because we have a fence and nothing inside our yard except grass.....until now. I'm sure they will make the easy jump over the fence once there are plants.

 

Thanks in advance!!

[fondybrewfan]

I was thinking about asking some of the same questions. We bought a new house and would love to start a garden but a combination of rabbits, deer, chipmunks, and squirrels has me wondering if anything I plant has a chance of surviving. Keeping rabbits and deer out is a lot easier than squirrels and chipmunks. No fencing will do there. Good idea on the mesh at ground level to keep the borrowing critters out.

[jerichoholicninja]

#FearTheDeer

 

I never though I'd have to worry about deer living in the city but our first summer living here they destroyed our garden. So i built an 8 foot fence around it. That took care of the deer but the slugs took their place. Maybe it won't be such a big issue with you having raised beds putting a cup of beer in the ground will attract and kill a lot of them. And putting a layer of mulch will help keep the moisture in and weeds out.

 

As for spacing, your cucumbers will be space hogs and possibly the tomatoes too depending on what type of plant. Last year I put about 3 feet of space between our tomatoes and they wound up a giant tangled mess. You can intermix the carrots and lettuce.

[RobDeer 45]

Yeah, we are basically in the city too and the deer are thick! Doesn't help that the old lady down the street feeds them everyday! But they'd still be here no matter what.

[Storm]

We have 8, 5' x 10' raised beds. Five foot wide is a little too wide. I can reach the middle of the bed but my wife cannot. Have been using raised beds since the mid 80's. They are great for square foot gardening and are a lot easier to keep weeded. Two of them have trellises made from cattle panels. We grow our cucumbers and tall vine tomatoes on them. We also extend the season with hoop houses. We already have both hoop houses planted and should be harvesting veggies in a week or two. We normally can get fresh greens in early December.

 

We live in rural western Wisconsin and see upwards of a dozen deer daily. We have found that if we fertilize the yard around the gardens with Milwaukee's own Milorganite it keeps the deer away. But you have to do it several times a year.

[RobDeer 45]

Do squirrels eat tomatoes? Will a fence around the garden even keep them out? Something is eating my tomatoes and not touching anything else. It's something with teeth - because I can see the bite mark - about an inch wide. I have to get this fixed asap!

[paul253]

Chipmunks or rabbits would be my guess. I grew tomatoes a few years ago. Put a little mini wooden fence around them and they were ok. I've heard spreading human hair around the area will keep pests out but I have no idea if that works. I will say I've had zero luck with that store bought repel stuff.

[fondybrewfan]

So far my rabbit fence has kept all the critters out. My soil must suck though because the plants aren't growing as well as I had hoped. Probably doesn't help that I couldn't put my garden in complete full sun. Only gets direct sun from 12:30 or so on.

[Katuluu]

Squirrels love tomatoes. Not much you can do once they catch on to what you're growing and they discover they like it. Those suckers can get into anything.

 

Cucumbers are essentially a weed once they get going. Keep them by themselves or they will choke out anything around it. I typically do tomatoes in containers as it's easier to keep them under control that way. Carrots and lettuce are easy to keep, but make sure to till the soil really well for the carrots or they will not grow straight.

 

Peppers are ridiculously easy to grow and don't take up much space. I generally do bell, jalapeno and habaneros every year. Beans are are another easy to grow veggie. They also will self propagate if you leave some on the vine at the end of the season. I've been doing potatoes the past couple years growing them inside old tires. You just lay the tire flat on the ground, and put your seedlings on the ground and cover them in top soil. As they grow you just put on another tire and add more topsoil. Once they are ready to harvest you just pull off the tires and harvest. I typically put the soil in my flower beds.

 

Herb gardens are crazy easy to keep as well.

[Katuluu]

-Fondy

 

Late afternoon sun is stronger/better than morning sun. If they are getting sun from 1230-6pm or later you should be able to grow most anything. This fall you should add some compost to the soil and that should help for next year.