When my wife and I first got out to our new homestead, the first thing we did was dig up a garden. It rained most of May here on Canada's east coast so we lost some seedlings. Those that survived, however, gave us a pretty good crop out of that little postage stamp of a garden. Anyway, I'm chatting with a Facebook friend, who is 81 by the way, and she tells me that she tends her 'raised' gardens. It's called 'hugelkulture' from the German word 'hugel' meaning 'mound' or 'hill'.
The idea is that you put down cardboard in the shape that you want (to keep out next season's weeds), then you put down a layer of logs, then smaller branches to fill in the gaps, smaller sticks, then a layer of hay or leaves or grass clippings. We used dried out potato plants from the farmer's field behind us. Then comes your compost, then your topsoil mixed with manure and on top of that your mulch. We have three raised gardens constructed now and looking forward to next season's planting. The logs and smaller branches provide the garden with organic material and the wood also holds moisture well meaning that you don't have to water this raised garden as much as a conventional one.
Anyone into raised gardens? We'd love to hear from you on your experience with this method!
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Thank you for sharing this info. I do love gardening fresh vegetables, watermelons, cucumbers and cantalopes. I had a garden a long time ago and been wanting to start again. Now is the perfect time to do it.