This summer, as I worked on the patios around our house, I decided I wanted a kitchen garden—one close to the house, where I’d be more likely to come out and enjoy it and grab produce for dinner.
When we moved here in 2018, I had a small kitchen garden, all in large pots, on the lower patio that first year.
After I developed the lower gardens, which are 2 acres below the house, I quit growing food by the house because I had large in-ground beds to grow in.
My arm injury taught me a lesson. Even if the distance doesn’t seem long, you won’t go down there enough, especially if you need a lot of help.
While the gardens did grow this year, I couldn’t water or weed enough. The central bed I had the tomatoes in was overrun by Voles, which destroyed ¾ of the crop by chewing the plants at the base. It stayed alive for the first ten weeks, only for the kids to water it here and there for me. Even now, as I clean up for winter, I can only do so much by myself. There are only so many hours I have help from them, with school going on.
But up by the house, that I can work on. By myself. Thoough help is appreciated of course.
Off of the lower patio, there is “grass,” which is flat and then goes downhill. There is a major retaining wall, and I don’t want to use that part. I will put in a low fence to keep the deer away from wandering in. I see them once a week, on average, on the cameras, but all they do is eat grass. They leave the bed and greenhouse alone, though they are nearby on the grassy area.
But I want to lock off their access to the lower patio area (they use the steps near the red building to get up to the grass). Putting in a fence with 3-foot-high metal fencing and lightweight U posts will be quick and easy.
The pop-up greenhouse sits on the patio. It will stay. With two carts getting full of soil, I am going to reuse as much of it as I can and finish breaking down the bed. Waste not, want not.
I think I am going to lay down farm fabric across the flat areas to smother the weeds and “grass.” I picked up six small 4-foot raised beds and am considering putting them with a couple more beds made of the stones I am pulling apart.
With walking paths between the beds and wood chips put down. I need to of course measure it all, and plot it out on paper, before I start building beds.
I can fit two beds along the house, with a strip behind, for access on all four sides. It is an area we have never used, in nearly seven years here.
The biggest issue was waiting for the growing season to wind down, so I could start tearing down this 8-foot raised bed, The boys stacked many of the paver bricks, to the side, and started digging out the soil.
My first goal will be to get the first fabric down, build the beds, and fill them under the window along the house. Then, I will finish breaking down this bed. Any leftover soil will be spread out onto the land to even it out a bit more. Then, I will cover it with fabric and make new beds over it.
I aim to have ten raised beds, each one for a different vegetable. Depending on placement, I might be able to have more. We shall see!
Today, the rain returns for the next week, but I hope to get outside between storms (and windy days often blow the rain away, and I have time to work) and start building the new beds this week.
I will update once it is all built. But for now? I feel like I can see it, and I will soon have it done.
~Sarah