The best thing about garden beds is once they’re set up, maintenance for growing plants is minimal. It just requires regular watering and fertilizing, and of course replanting your favorite vegetables each season.
First, start with the right bed for your space and your budget.
Once the garden space is determined, set the bed in place and level the bed. We used rock over landscape fabric around our beds for ease of leveling and relied on the expertise of Goldfeather Gardens for our garden space design.
Inside the bed, place landscape fabric on the ground, then add 2 – 4” of small rock. This will provide drainage in your beds that plants usually like. If you have decided to use a 12” bed, some folks have dug down into the ground up to 12” to increase the amount of growing space for plants.
Then, add soil. I personally leave up to 2- 4” from the top of the bed, depending on the depth of the bed. This helps me in a couple of ways. First, it gives me room to add compost to the soil without going over the top of the bed. Second, it gives room for my winter plants and my early planted vegetables to grow under my cold box covers. Based on this planting plan, I use about 3/4 yard of soil for a 24” bed and just over 1/2 yard of soil for one of our 18” beds.
Last, add plants. What and how you plant is a personal decision and many plants grow very well next to each other. I use trellises to grow more plants up rather than spreading across the bed (think squashes and pumpkins that like to roam). Garden experts can help, as well. Two that have been very helpful to me are the wonderful garden teams at D&B Supply and Jamie, the owner of Goldfeather Gardens, jamie@goldfeathergardens.com
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