I’ve been obsessed with plants for…well, all of my life! I would help my mom with gardening when I was younger, mostly just planting and maintaining flowers, bushes, and trees. Now I’ll be planting in a raised garden bed of my own!
I was gifted my raised garden bed for Mothers Day this year and quickly decided I would try to produce some home grown, organic food for my family. Honestly, I had little to no clue where to begin planting in a raised garden bed..I just knew I needed a lot of organic soil, some seeds, water, and sun. I began to do a little research instead of diving right in, just to make sure I wouldn’t royally screw this garden up. Let me tell you I learned A LOT..thank God I took this time to dig a bit deeper into my new hobby.
I found out that there are many plants that can not grow properly next to one another, and many plants actually thrive next to each other. This is what the gardening world calls ‘companion planting’..It’s really quite interesting. The website I use as a guide is Burpee! I also learned that each plant needs a specific amount of space to grow, you need specific blends of soil for veggies, and each plant is maintained and harvested differently. I’m going to give you my simplified version that made planting in a raised garden bed easy for me. 🙂
What You’ll Need to Start Planting
Here are all the materials you need to start your garden (one big bag of soil will not be enough, look at your beds dimensions to figure out how much you need). Once you decide what you want to grow, with plant spacing and companion planting in mind- go get your seeds or starter plants! Jalapenos, bell peppers, baby greens, spinach, and onions will be growing in my garden.
Gardening gloves are a must. There are fibers and other random materials in the soil that can cut or irritate your skin. I use a little pointed garden shovel to break up the bigger chunks of soil and even out the bed! Make sure you have a measuring tape, string, scissors, and tape to make your square feet!
Lining Your Raised Garden Bed
My garden bed came with this protective fabric, I used a staple gun to set it in place before I dumped my soil in! I’m not sure if this step is 100% necessary..I’ve seen mixed reviews on landscape fabric. I should also mention that a few days before I started this James used a water resistant stain to weatherproof the bed! I would have never thought of that.. lol.
Spacing Out Your Plants
Here is where the string, tape, and measuring tape come in. I did my best to measure out 8 square feet, but my bed was a little too small- so the bottom squares fell about an inch short (no big deal)!
Planting Seeds
Time to plant! Check out the positioning of the sun before you start planting. I began with my tall starter plants- you want to make sure your larger plants aren’t shading your seedlings or smaller plants. Follow the directions on the packaging carefully..each seed or plant requires different depths and widths in the soil!
Water Your Garden Bed
Plants two favorite things are water and sun! So as soon as you’ve put those babies in the soil, give them a heavy drink of water. I water my plants almost everyday (some days I just completely forget), early in the morning or at night.
Watch Them Grow
The first of my seeds to sprout were my baby greens. They were up and out of the soil in only 3 days! The others followed quickly behind and before I knew it I had a beautifully full garden! I was able to harvest my greens first, cutting them about an inch from the soil..three months later they are still growing strong!
Garden Visitors
About a month down the gardening path, these little caterpillars made a home in my baby greens. While I was clipping I started noticing holes in my greens and even some that were munched down to nothing! When I took a closer look I found about 10 of these little green guys and dozens of their eggs.
I’m a lover of all living things..so I really had to think about what to do here. I ended up physically picking up each caterpillar and placing them in a new home outside of my garden. LOL. Then I got an organic spray to keep them from coming back. Every now and then I get a few new visitors and just repeat this process.
Plants Brings Joy
This is still a learning process for me and a very fun journey. I feel such a strong connection to my garden and all the little bugs and caterpillars in it. If the tiny guys aren’t hurting anything just leave them be- chances are they are keeping the bad bugs out. If you have any questions feel free to email me or leave a comment, If I don’t have the answer we can find it and grow together! 🙂