Fifteen years ago , I bought my first menage and jump my first garden . Since then I ’ve intern at the Dallas Arboretum , worked as a greenhouse plant propagator , hold leadership roles at two community gardens , and completed the preparation to become a Certified Texas Master Gardener .
Though I sleep with my current home and garden , there is n’t a daytime that goes by that I do n’t dream of my next landscape and what I would do with it .
Knowing what I get laid now , if I had to start a garden from scratch …
I would…
1. Create a master plan
The best looking landscapes are well - plan . Even landscapes intend to wait completely natural will look more pleasing to the eye and the senses when it has been thoughtfully and intentionally planned out in advance .
A well - design landscape achieves many things including :
2. Build a minimum of 6 raised beds
raise veggie in raised bed not only improve drain , but it creates a morsel of order in the garden . As we have a go at it , vegetable garden do n’t always look clean and tidy , especially at the destruction of a season .
The problem with raised beds is that we tend to build too few of them , and we limit the amount of nutrient that can be grown and the types of plants that we can try . build more raised beds also allow us to dedicated an entire bed to one crop . This makes our gardening much more effective ( seeHow to Garden Like A Farmer ) .
I love when an full bed is dedicated to one plant . This declension , I have 40 invertebrate foot of row blank just for tomatoes , 20 feet of row distance just for wintertime squash , and 20 feet of run-in space just for cauliflower . It has dramatically lose weight the amount of time I spend in the garden each dawn because I ’m not switch over between hose attachments orfertilizertypes or worrying about one crop trench on the next .
Why six beds?
Six beds gives us enough blank space to grow a large amount of intellectual nourishment each season , and leave a few beds useable for mid - time of year crops like garlic , for example .
In North Texas , garlic is planted in mid - October . If we only had two or three promote beds , they would all be fill with our gloam crops by this breaker point in the year , leaving us no elbow room for planting the garlic . Onions are another exercise . institute in late January , onion plant will still be in the soil by the start of June , room past the time that saltation crops should be planted .
Here is an example of how I would institute six raise bed in my “ from - scratch ” garden :
3. Construct shorter raised beds
( Forgive me while I abuse up on my soapbox … ) The worst trend I see in garden today is upraise bed that are too tall . The only reason that a kick upstairs bed should be taller than 12 inches off the priming is if there is a physical limitation of the gardener preventing them from put to work a garden layer that is tight to the ground . That ’s it !
Why tall raised beds are so bad
Raised seam have two benefits 1 ) better drain and 2 ) good dirt because you could control the territory in the beds . But raised beds are not perfect . In fact , raised beds can cause MORE problems than they clear when they are too high .
Beds that are too high-pitched are particularly dangerous in our region where summer temperatures on a regular basis soar above 100 degrees . This is because they expose the dirt to the ambient temperature . This dramatically raises dirt temperature , and vegetables really do n’t care this . High ground temperatures make flora to suffer extreme stress . This stress can stop fruit on the whole and increase a industrial plant ’s susceptibility to pestilence and disease .
A tall raised bed in the center of summer can require twice dailywateringto maintain a level of soil moisture necessary to endure vegetable growth . Some nurseryman seek to rectify this by swapping out wood frames for metal frames , but this makes issue worse because metallic element makes the soil get even hot .
In shortsighted , when it comes to tall beds , do n’t do it !
Benefits of short raised beds (12″ maximum):
4. Fill raised beds with a 50/50 soil blend
When I built my current raised bed , I line up a local bulk supplier advertising a “ Veggie Mix ” that was touted as the perfect mix for raised veg garden . I paid a pretty penny to have it surrender and then spend eight , back - breaking hours moving it one wheelbarrow at a time into the beds . Three months later , every individual vegetable I transplanted into it had yellow , shrivelled and died .
It was an expensive , and heartbreaking lesson in the risk of trusting shiny marketing .
The best mix for vegetables
This yr , my father rule a different provider offer a 50/50 portmanteau word of surface soil and compost . As unsexy as it sounds , this intermixture turned out to be the good dirt mix I ’ve ever seen in my 15 class of gardening . Every individual plant life that my father put into that dirt grew over six feet in height ( even the eggplant bush ! ) and give rise more vegetables than I had managed to grow in two years at the same biotic community garden . It was nothing short of spectacular .
A 50/50 blending of topsoil and compost is also advocate by our local Agrilife government agency .
Avoid commercial bagged raised bed mixes
In another Dallas community of interests garden where I have volunteered , several of the raise beds were filled with Kellogg brand Raised Bed Soil Mix . To our horror , we strike that the mix is mostly shredded wood , which explain the low cost point .
Shredded woodwind instrument in large amounts is very spoilt in a land mix . This is because that woodwind will continue to try and reveal itself down . This outgrowth of decomposition requires nitrogen . And where does that nitrogen come from ? It gets draw out from the grime and away from your plant .
5. Leave only enough turf to generate compost
You might be surprised that I would n’t move out all of the turf in my landscape painting entirely . While I firm believe that landscapes with inordinate turf are not serious for our environment because of weewee usage , gas befoulment , and chemical applications , I do believe in grass for its potential as a “ green manure ” .
smoke clippings are one of the expert stuff for compost . It ’s already shred , so it breaks down quickly . And it is a brilliant source of nitrogen .
If I were to start a garden from scratch , I would definitely verify to keep a lowly field of grass to make cutting . My preference for sward would be St. Augustine .
6. Grow more of less
If I were part my garden again from scratch , I would focus on fewer plants and just plant more of them .
Plant in mass
One of the most important concepts of landscape intention that I sample to instill in my students is the musical theme of planting in mass . or else of buy and plant one of everything , boil down your plant natural selection to a few plants and then buy heavily into each of them and set your landscape in swaths of plant .
This technique result in landscapes with intentionality and dramatically more impact because it gives the eye a place to lie . alternatively of darting from one color to the next , one plant to the next , the eye is drawn slowly into each flora “ swath ” where it can fully take in the glory and the impact of each plant . ( mean about your last sojourn to the Dallas Arboertum during saltation tulip bloom . )
Get more bang for your buck in the vegetable garden
This was one of the first years that I made a committal to growing more of fewer harvest . In the outflow I only grew garlic , onion , tomato plant , gumbo and pepper . That ’s it ! But , I grew a short ton of them .
I grew24 tomatoplants , 120 garlic plants , 200 + onions , 6 gumbo industrial plant , and 6 peppercorn plants . Despite the narrow selection , I produced the highest yield of veggie in my 15 - year development history . It let me to donate the absolute majority of it to a food pantry and give the rest aside to family and friends .
Growing more of less is a garden best-practice because:
7. Build in dedicated spaces for annuals
I used to be so focussed on growing vegetables and pollinator perennial ( plants I view as purposeful ) that thought of annuals as a barren of my time and money .
But now I have several containers around my home dedicate to seasonal annuals , and the practice of refreshing them throughout the year fills me with exhilaration . Planning the combinations of colors and texture feels like creating a piece of artistic creation .
Though institute vegetables and perennials can make us finger like we ’re doing something unspoiled , annuals are just as important for creating a balanced landscape .
If I were starting from bread I ’d design perennial beds with dedicated space for annuals , and maybe even summate some “ window box ” to my raised layer where annuals can keep the vegetables company .
8. Blend natural and formal
If I were starting my garden from clams , I ’d build in some more formal elements . I ’m partial to a natural , relaxed landscape , but I ’ve fall back in honey with the formal elegance of English gardens . The British have such a rich traditional of horticulture that I can lento see being adopted in the Department of State . Perhaps some of the formality will itch off as well .
Formality can be added to be a garden with more than just plant . Hardscaping with tiled , bricked , or stone pathway can provide formality as can light walls , gates , doors , trellises , archways .
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