Getting Ahead of Myself

I was so proud of myself today. I got out there and laid out landscaping fabric across the back section of the forest. I was precise and tidy. Stakes were consistently spaced to avoid wind grabbing a corner and stay down to kill that grass. What I forgot, my husband later pointed out, is that this area is where the self-watering raised beds will go. The land slopes down to the south, so we need to dig in and create level platforms for each bed - there will be four.

Sigh.

So at some point soon I will be pulling the fabric back to dig out the holes for the beds. Then I'll re-lay the fabric with cutout spaces for the beds.

The reason we are using fabric in this area vs the cardboard and woodchips is that it's really hard to secure that much cardboard for one thing. This fabric is an easier way to kill the grass below and we can just cut into it as we plant our anchor trees - fig, elderberry and bay laurel - while leaving the rest in place to tamp future growth. We'll work mulch into the soil in each area we cut into before planting the trees and their guilds. At the end we plan to lay woodchips across the non-planted areas, basically the walking paths.

The large square areas with cardboard and hog fuel are where our in-ground raised beds will go. Once spring arrives we'll add about 4" of organic compost and then top with mulch to create really nutrient rich soil to plant into. It's a little intimidating to see that much space to garden! We'll have a 10x10 area for root vegetables (nearest in picture), four 32' long raised beds that we'll use for annual crop rotation, and four more 4x8 self-watering raised beds for more of the specialty, fun produce like sunchokes and ground cherries and all manner of good stuff.

One of our goals is to grow enough food that we can store what we need for the year, share with family, and still sell some locally to neighbors. So we're building for abundance! I can't wait for the day I can share a picture of the entire garden in full bloom. It might take us a couple years to get there, but well worth the effort.