garden plans, update

[rafiwinters]

Hi all! Here are my latest thoughts about our garden. Feedback welcome.

The bed (raised) is about 96 square feet. We are thinking of dividing it in thirds. We will get rid of as much of the [expletive deleted] bindweed first, then be hypervigilant for shoots showing up.

One-third: just cover with mulch. This leaves options open for next year, and I prefer the mulching idea to landscape fabric.

One-third: plant ground cover such as sedum and creeping thyme to get this started.

One-third: plant annuals, mainly tomatoes.

We also have quite a few pots, which I'm thinking of using to grow herbs--lavender, sage, mint etc.

Some questions:

--do I need a soil thermometer? I know our approximate last-frost date (April 16, so we have a month to finish planning). Should I trust this or do I need to measure soil temperature before planting?

--the top of the soil in the raised bed is a couple of inches below the top of the retaining wall. Should we get some more soil to top it up with? Might be a little easier to reach and work with?

Thanks!

Comments

[recently_folded]

On your last point, a bit below is fine because it leaves space in future years to top-dress with compost plus add nutritive/weed-control mulch, both of which are current best thinking on maintenance. If you find the edge drop visually obtrusive, think about a low border planting of perennials that will mound along that edge, possibly drape a bit over it and thus mask it. I can't judge how much difference it'd make for you to tend, but that's certainly a factor if those few inches are important for you. I'm not supposed to bend over (eye disorder) but I get a lot done by sitting and/or kneeling on the ground next to my beds and skunching along the ground as I work. But everybody has their own constraints.

I garden in Alaska and go more by feeling the soil and watching the perennials come up than I do by measurement. So I've never thought about a thermometer. OTOH, I tend to choose things (or they survive me) that aren't that exquisitely fussy. Ask yourself: how much difference will it really make for what you plan to plant?

And when you say "sedum" I hope you mean "lots of different sedums" because en masse they are a delight. Here, we can buy "sedum tiles" that are some square measure (often a foot or a foot and a half) that are packed with different varieties. Some won't be hardy but enough will that you can get decent spreading with time and have a nicely varied look.

Have you looked at the so-called "lasagna" method of mulching, where you use a plant-impermeable but degradable mulch like sheets of newspaper or cardboard and then top with something nicer like leaves? I question its use where wildfire hazard is high, but otherwise if your soil gets both moisture and warmth, it can be a good intermediate step for at least reducing weeds. It eventually gets buried in soil, which you can do at the beginning or later, once you're ready to plant and both leaves and cardboard have degraded substantially. That might give some extra anti-bindweed muscle to your mulching plan.

[dragonlady7]

Ah, I was just coming here to recommend the cardboard method-- my sister has managed to get rid of large chunks of her lawn by simply flopping big sheets of cardboard down, then mounding woodchip mulch over the top. You can even plant directly into it by just stabbing a planting knife or trowel down through and making a hole, just make sure you're putting in a transplant seedling large enough not to get lost in those woodchips and with enough roots to make a home in whatever the substrate is under the cardboard, since you have't worked it much.

But it's ideal for your first year kill-everything-back mulch project, and makes your woodchips go a lot farther!

I've seen a lot of tutorials and things that go way into soaking the newspaper first, etc etc, but really we just make sure the cardboard's got no plastic tape or labels on it, and flop it down in such a way that there are no gaps (an overlap is preferable) and then do not stint with the mulch.
Bindweed is the worst though, I wish you luck with that. Constant vigilance!

[feroxargentea]

You don't need a thermometer for outdoor sowing -- just feel the soil with your hands, and if it's unpleasantly cold, wait a bit longer. If you're not sure, watch for the first crop of tiny weed seedlings to appear, hoe those down, and then sow things you *do* want :)

It's probably helpful to have a bit of an edge to your raised beds rather than filling to the brim, to stop soil falling out when you dig/hoe/weed. You might need to watch out for slugs and snails using the shaded edges to hide behind, though.

[rafiwinters]

About the sedum, yes, lots of different ones. I can get a "mat"/kit for a reasonable cost. I'm thinking two to four of those and just lay them in, along with the creeping thyme. Oh, and someone else (not on DW) mentioned Corsican mint. Ha ha, I kind of want to plant (whatever kind of) mint and watch it do battle with the bindweed...

[rafiwinters]

Newspaper or cardboard topped by mulch seems to be the way to go--landscape fabric costs money that we'd rather spend on other things--and we have several cardboard boxes as it happens--it would be easy to cut them down and use them. Then mulch.

Constant vigilance for the win!

rather than filling to the brim

[rafiwinters]

That's good to know--thanks.

Didn't see any slugs or snails last year but we will look out for them.

Last frost is approximately a month from now.