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The next step in this guide is planting. However, you need to make sure your area is safe from freezing before you plant your vegetables. You can safely plant any root style vegetables now, but green sprouts above the ground will be killed by frost, so it’s best to be 100% certain there is not going to be freezing conditions before planting.
Freezing temperatures are not a danger in my area now, and I usually plant my garden on Easter Weekend. This year has been extremely wet, so I waited another week for the soil to dry out. I was able to get my garden planted this weekend and I’m relieved to have it pretty much done. Now all I have left is to plant a few more seedlings that I started and put some straw down for weed control.
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Planting Raised Beds
If you have your raised beds set up properly and have planned out your garden properly, you shouldn’t have anything left to do except put the plants and seeds in the soil. I still have a few pointers to help make sure everything goes smoothly for you.
Last week we talked about what to plant, and a little bit about where to place vegetables in the raised beds. You can easily go by the seed packet or your garden sketch and simply put the seeds in the soil at the proper depth and spacing. If you go by my guide last week you should be in good shape.
It’s important to try to plan your planting at a time when there will be fair weather for the next several days. Try not to plant your seeds on a day when storms are threatening. Heavy rain could make the bed too wet, the seeds could wash away, and small seedlings may not handle the stress. You don’t want to mess up your freshly planted seeds and seedlings with a heavy thunderstorm!
I want to cover another raised bed planting method real quick because it is a good idea, and it wouldn’t be right to leave this method out of the garden guide.
Square Foot Gardening
There is popular raised bed gardening method for raised beds called square foot gardening. There are several benefits to using this method, but I like it because it looks neat and organized. Here is a brief explainer on the method (from Wikipedia).
The phrase "square foot gardening" was popularized by Mel Bartholomew in a 1981 Rodale Press book[1] and subsequent PBS television series.[2] Bartholomew, a retired engineer, devised a raised 4 by 4 feet (1.2 m × 1.2 m) square bed with a grid. Each of these 4 by 4 square beds was then divided into sixteen one-foot squares, the grid. Each square is planted with a different crop species based on a formulation of either one, four, nine or sixteen plants per square depending on the plant's overall size. Once a “square foot” is harvested, a different crop can be planted for a continual harvest. To encourage a variety of different crops in succession, and to discourage pests, each square is used for a different kind of plant (crop rotation) within the growing season. The number of plants per square depends on an individual plant's size. For example, a single tomato plant takes a full square, as might herbs such as oregano, basil or mint, while lettuce plants would be planted four per square, and up to sixteen per square of plants such as radish or carrots. Tall plants are trellised on the north side (in the northern hemisphere) of the bed to avoid shading smaller plants and prevent sprawling on the ground.
Note: I’m sure you guys were smart and built your beds 8’ long and 4’ wide. If you did, that is perfectly fine, you will have twice as many squares in your grid, twice as much food!
Here are the items you will need to set up the squares on top of your wooden raised bed frames:
Tape measure
Hammer
Pencil or Marker
Small “8 penny” Nails
Carpenter String
The steps are as follows:
Measure 12” from one end of the raised bed and put a mark on the top edge of the garden box. Go along the top of the box making marks at 12”
Put a nail at each of the marks and drive it in about half way so that you can tie a string to it and pull it fairly tight without the nail coming out.
Tie a string to the nail and then run the string across to the other nail directly across the bed from it
do this for all nails and you end up with a raised bed with a grid of 1’ squares
Pro Tip: To easily tie the string to the nail, simply make a loop on one end like this.
Hook the loop end on one nail, and then go to the corresponding nail across the box on the other side and attach the string to the nail like this:
When you’re finished with this exercise, you will have several 1’ squares along your entire raised bed. Now you can layout your seed packs in each square according to your sketched plan. You can even go ahead and put the plant markers in the square so you know where each crop will be planted.
Planting Seeds and Seedlings
Now it’s time to start planting seeds, here are the steps you will take and a few tools that will aid in this process.
small spade for planting seedlings
Lay out all of your seed packets and make sure you have everything ready to plant
Use a small stick or pencil to make a hole in the soil for your seeds
Plant your seeds or small plants inside the 1’ squares per the directions on the packaging
Place the labeled plant marker somewhere inside the square to mark the plant type if you haven’t already
Lightly water the bed
Don’t tear up the seed envelopes too much so you can keep the left over seeds. I put a piece of tape on the flap of the envelope and keep all the seed envelopes in a plastic zipper bag.
Now that you have your seeds planted you can take a step back and look at what you’ve accomplished! I’m proud of you!
Next few weeks is just a waiting game. Make sure the soil is not too wet and not too dry. You want it to be lightly moist about half an inch deep when you stick a finger in the soil. This usually means lightly watering every other day depending on the weather. If your bed is in full sunlight all day, you may need to water more often.
We’ll see you next week.
WAGMI
Farmer