Thinking about complete re-doing my gardens--Ideas?

Hello everyone,

So as the title says, I am thinking about completely redoing my garden beds.  Right now, I have two garden beds that parallel my driveway.  Each bed is 8' x 16', and the beds are situated so that they are next to each other lengthwise, with a wide section in between them.  In practice, this makes the garden beds about 50 feet long by about 8 feet wide.  Making matters worse, I need to fence in the gardens due to deer pressure and thanks to their proximity to the driveway, I can't put in a fence that will give me any reasonable clearance on the driveway side.  I did have a sort of garden-edge fencing system, but it was awkward and clumsy--and now rotten to pieces!  In fact, the whole raised bed is simply rotten to nothing so I need to do something to recover at least some of the garden beds.

One thought I am having is to move my gardens to a completely new patch of ground and start over again.  The patch of ground would be much further away from the house (not great), but I could get a nice, broad, flat patch of ground that would let me put in a garden that is more square in shape.  This would be a better shape both for getting raised beds,  working in spacing between the beds and putting in fencing.  

This brings me to a number of thoughts and questions that I wanted to pose to everyone and get ideas.  My first thought was to make the whole garden a series of six beds that are each about 6'x20' with the beds laid out in a 2x3 configuration (2 end to end, 3 side by side).  Alternatively, and depending on placement and elevation, I might change this to a 2x2 configuration.  With this in mind here are some of my thoughts/questions:

1)  What to do about the initial tillage?  The options seem to be

     1.  A one-time tilling of the soil just to work in amendments (this is some serious brown clay)

     2.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, I would cover the beds with newspaper/cardboard/something organic and compostable that would block old plant growth (this is going
          on old pasture grass), cover with wood chips, add Wine Caps and let the fungi do its thing!  Make no mistake, I will eventually be using Wine Caps, but I don't know if I want this
          to be the first step.

     3.  Mow VERY close, *POSSIBLY* spray w/vinegar (or not, I just don't know about this option) and then seed in a smothering cover crop.  If I go the cover crop route, I would
          probably start this spring/summer and not actually start building new beds for another couple of seasons.  This would be to give the smother crops an opportunity to do their
          thing and to enrich the soil.

     4.  Is there some optimal combination?  Maybe smother for a few months and then seed with another smothering crop to further inhibit weeds and help build soil fertility?

2)  What spacing should I use?  I am thinking that I can use 6' wide beds as I can get a pretty good reach into the bed (I am 6'3" tall).  Also, what spacing is good between beds.  My
    initial thought was 4' between rows and 5' around rows/between the rows & fencing.  Is this enough?  Too much?  

3)  Finally, around the out perimeter I was thinking about planting comfrey as a weed barrier, allowing me to mow right up to the comfrey without having to worry about getting out
    to trim (I hate trimming!).  I would probably help these comfrey plants along by giving them a good dose of wood chips.  

So what do you think?  I would love to hear your thoughts.  I will attach a picture as soon as I can.


Eric

OK, I got the picture uploaded.  At the upper left corner, you can see my other two garden beds.  The beds themselves are fine, but their placement is poor.  The yellow rectangle is about the correct size and shape of the garden that I am thinking about putting in.  Actually, this shape might be closer to a 2x2 configuration than a 2x3 configuration.  Looking at the placement of the new garden bed, the land starts to slope off dramatically near the direction of the corner with the blue dot.  If I move the bed further away from the house and closer to the road, the flatter the ground becomes.  I just don't want to put the bed too far from the house and the bed is pretty far as it is.

Eric

Even though I almost never use tillers myself, in your situation I would probably borrow or rent a tiller next spring and just till in all the new area. And be sure to dig out all the roots of any noxious weeds with deep root systems in the area. On one half, I'd dump a dumptruck load of composted manure and the other half I'd dump a big load of wood chips. Get some logs and for the compost side I'd use them as bed liners and for the woodchip side I'd use them for hugelkultur beds. Do a long term comparison between the two. Mulch both sides with woodchips and keep the winecaps going as a perennial if you can- they make great soil! Field and forest sells a  great cultivar of this mushroom. Plant and interplant lots of legumes and use them as cover crops whenever you can- they also build soil and attract bees.

In my experience, vinegar does not work as a weedkiller, especially on grasses or noxious weeds like blackberry. Cardboard, heavy woodchip mulching, and digging weeds out works much better for me. Other folks might have a different take on vinegar, however.

I like my beds about 4' X 25' or 5' X 20' cause I partially use the biointensive system and 100 square feet is the standard size they use. But you might want to make yours wider cause you have longer reach.
I'd make the pathways wide enough for your wheel barrow and your mower. Maybe you could map out a few different plans on graph paper (my preference) or use that new garden app that other people on this website  use. Anyone here remember the name of that app?

I don't have much experience with comfrey, but I think it's best as a guild member, maybe on the north side of a food forest orchard near apples and pears. I also like fruit bushes like blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, goumi berry, raspberries etc.  along the fences here.

Good luck Eric and please keep us updated!

If I were in your situation, I would make new garden beds, now, weather permitting.

I would get two or three loads of wood chips dumped in the new location.  Maybe put down cardboard where the wood chips will be dumped.

By spring the dormant grass might have died or is smothered too deep to come back.

I would keep the garden beds by the driveway for an ornamental garden or a deer resistant flower garden.  

Please let us know what you decide to do.

Hi Eric, It sounds like a great plan! For tillage, I’d go with a one-time tilling to break up the clay, then cover it all with a few layers of newspapers and let the fungi work.

Hi Eric,
I like the idea to keep your old ones as a deer resistant flower garden.

I also vote for smothering if you have time. This would be my preferred method, but so far I get started too late and need to plant, so I end up doing the tilling once and going from there.

Bed Size
I would suggest making the beds no more than 4 feet wide. I know you are tall and have a good reach, but you may have family who is not so long-reached. Also, you might need to sell the house at some point, and the next person might not be so long-reached either. Two feet is more doable for us shorter folk :)

Bed Spacing
If space was no object I would probably have at least 4ft around every side so that I could move a wheelbarrow in between. That should be enough to go straight easily without worry. I think it would be enough for turning corners too.

Matt, Anne, M K, Everyone,

Thanks for the responses!  To be clear, this is definitely a long-term project and not one that I will begin very soon—time!!!  For next summer, I will continue to use my old beds.

I am getting ideas now so I can start getting a plan early.  After this school year is over I will have 6 years left before retirement and I would love to have this project well on its way by then.  And by that I mean that I want my beds to be fully productive and the soil/bedding thoroughly broken down.  And since you know that it is me, you know that I will be using Wine Caps to break down wood chips for bedding!!

I would also like make use of a better set of cover crops—hence the reasoning for smother crops and nitrogen fixers.  Even more fun, I would like to get a leaf vac-trailer for my zero turn mower so that I can collect leaves in the fall and add them as a topping to the beds to winter over.

Perhaps the most vexing issue is just how to address tilling.  In the past I wouldn’t hesitate to till, but I am liking the idea of something like a daikon radish to loosen soil.

So again, thanks, and feel free to critique my ideas.

Eric

For the moment, lets assume that I will not be tilling.  In place of a tiller, I will (at least tentatively) plan to use crops to loosen the soil.  With that in mind, what crops would work best for loosening soil (organic tilling?)?  Offhand I am thinking of the following:

1.  Daikon radish--obviously, this one is well known for tillage.  But will it work well in the dense brown clay that I have?  Or perhaps better put, will it work in a reasonable time (1-2 growing seasons)?

2.  Oats--I understand that they will put down a fine root system that will perforate the ground.

3.  Crimson Clover?--I have heard that this will act much like oats in addition to adding copious nitrogen.  Of course, I need to make sure that I get it killed off before it goes to seed.

4.  Buckwheat--Again, supposedly it produces a great root system rather quickly, but really needs to be killed quickly to prevent seeding and becoming a nuisance.

5.  Is there some combination or perhaps a staggered order that would work?

Just to be clear, before I sow any seeds, I plan to first mow right down to the ground (maybe use my neighbor's flail mower to clear right to surface level) and then cover with cardboard/newspaper/landscaping paper/etc. with leaves on top, all held down by some combination of weights/logs/etc.

Thoughts?

Eric

I think you would be surprised by the results without even using the root vegetables and deep rooted crops. I suspect they would push it a little bit better, but when you pile on the leaves and woodchips and carboard and such... the moisture stays higher, and the microbes, bugs and worms move in and do a great job of loosening the soil on their own.

I had a garden that I tilled in the fall and put woodchips and nothing else, over part of it (I ran out of woodchips). The next spring when I was planting things, under the woodchips I could push my finger into the soil all the way to my knuckles without trying. Anywhere there was not woodchips, was hardpan and I couldn't push in at all without digging.

Matt,

Certainly you are right about piling on the wood chips.  I have done this in the past and was amazed at how the chips and was amazed at how the chips and clay soil just sort of merged together.  Given that I will be trimming up a long living fencerow, I will have an abundance of chips to lay down.  That said, I am of course wanting to supercharge the process as much as possible which is why I am investigating the possibility of using some deep-rooting cover crop.  But you are definitely correct that wood chips can work magic on the soil beneath.

Eric

Hi Eric no matter what you decide, I'm sure it will be phenomenal. I can't wait to see.

We have totally different climate, so what works for me, may not work for you. I'm a huge fan of hugle beets. I would dig a 2' into the ground slightly smaller than yours bed, and fill with wood, branches etc. Depending on what kind of grass I might put the grass layer on the bottom. I would throw my top layer in the chicken coop, because I'm pretty sure even a nuke won't kill Bermuda grass. Then I would drape weed cloth over the edges and into the path.(I know permies people hate weed cloth, I use it sparingly to reduce Bermuda grass from chocking out everything I plant)

Bed size? Well I agree with the general consensus. As we get older the things we always easily did, aren't so easy anymore. Your future self my thank you for making an narrower bed.

Spacing: There should be enough space to get what ever you need between the beds,  My first garden bed setup wasn't wide enough for a wheelbarrow, and it was miserable. The one I have now, I can get a wheelbarrow in the main pathways, but some places I didn't need to get a wheelbarrow in I made much closer. I didn't think about needing space for my legs. Weeding, and planting these areas are a challenge.

Sorry you are having wildlife munching your garden. I don't have deer, but I'm definitely battling the critters.  I'm considering framing my beds and adding a removable, or opening chicken wire panels. I hate this idea, I like having instant access to my garden. At this point the only veggie to survive are in a cage, so I may have to go this route.

It's smart of you to plan ahead. Good luck to you, and have fun.