05/16/2024 - Edible Gardens, Vegetable Garden

Benefits of Raised Gardens:

1. Better soil control: Raised beds allow you to create the ideal soil mix for your plants, as you can fill them with a blend of topsoil, compost, and other amendments to ensure optimal growing conditions.

2. Improved drainage: Raised beds tend to drain better than traditional in-ground gardens, which is particularly beneficial in areas with heavy, clay-rich, or poorly draining soils.

3. Easier maintenance: Since raised beds are elevated, they require less bending and stooping, making planting, weeding, and harvesting easier and more comfortable.

4. Extended growing season: Soil in raised beds tends to warm up earlier in the spring and stay warmer later into the fall, allowing for a longer growing season.

5. Pest and weed control: Raised beds can deter some pests like slugs and snails, as well as make it easier to spot and remove weeds. Installing barriers like hardware cloth at the bottom of the bed can also prevent burrowing pests.

6. Space efficiency: Raised beds allow you to maximize your growing space, as you can plant crops more densely compared to traditional row gardening.

7. Aesthetic appeal: Raised beds can add a tidy, organized, and attractive element to your garden or landscape design.

8. Accessibility: Raised beds can be built at a height that accommodates people with limited mobility or those who use wheelchairs, making gardening more accessible.

9. Crop rotation and companion planting: Raised beds make it easier to practice crop rotation and companion planting, which can improve soil health, reduce pest and disease issues, and increase yields.

10. Customization: Raised beds can be built in various shapes, sizes, and materials to suit your specific needs, space, and preferences.

11/05/2017 - Food Forest, Grow Your Own Food, Organic Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Garden

This season we turned a quarter acre of unused lawn into a permaculture style garden. A layout was created using a key-hole design style. This key-hole style maximizes the planting area while providing easy access to vegetables and creating different rooms within the garden. The existing lawn was stripped and lots of compost was amended to the soil. The compost provides nutrients to the plants, helps hold moisture and creates a much stronger soil composition. Plants were planted over the course of a few weeks. Many of the vegetables were grown from seeds and started indoors. Fruit trees were added to create shelter for plants that like a little shade. Most of the plants we chose were perennial species, which minimizes the future spring planting work. Some of the perennial plants we included were Apple, Pear, Persimmon, Cherry, Fig, Plum, Blueberry, Raspberry, Grape, Rosemary, Horseradish, Strawberry, Hops, Thyme, Sage and more. We also planted plenty of common annual vegetables, including Tomato, Pepper, Sunflower, Onion, Beet, Carrot, Basil, Parsley and many others. Other plants were included to provide shelter, wind blocks, bird and beneficial insect attractants, and aesthetic value. A deer fence was installed using cedar posts we gathered from our job sites. The cedar was also used to create a grape arbor and the gates.

The garden produced a lot of food within its first season. We are looking forward to much more as plants get more established. Next season we plan to add more of your common vegetables, especially Heirloom Tomatoes. We plan on incorporating bees and chickens in the upcoming years. Birds can be very beneficial to a garden in terms of insect control and fertilizer. We did not use any synthetic fertilizer or chemical pest control products. We used wood chips to mulch the garden areas which helped conserve moisture and keep the weeds in control. We hope to use this garden as a test bed and example of what other people can do with their back yards. Call Atlantic today to see how we can design, install and maintain a permaculture garden in your yard.