Our Future Planting Beds

As Winter hits and things are on auto pilot, I was researching all the seeds I would want to plant this coming Spring. I'm still debating on all the varieties I would love to see this season. I also have to face facts that I would be the sole eater of many of the things I grow. My husband has a short bucket list of veggies that make it into his mouth.

One thing is for sure, I want stuff that stores well and that I can harvest seeds from if able. Of course, I have my tomato seeds selected, those are a no brainer along with carrots and potatoes. Greens are a must as well but how much and what varieties? That's is the question across the board with everything else.

I might be in a slight analysis paralysis. So in effort to pull myself out of this I started building beds. I do love a raised bed but that's a costly thing. Building all the uniform raised beds would be VERY labor intensive. Not to mention we just don't have the money, tools and space to build such things. Maybe later down the road we can build pretty raised beds with new materials that will last.

So I decided in-ground planting was best and I will be using hugelkultur methods in two forms, low level and top level. We had success in the single raised bed we built last summer burying logs under the soil. Soil held moisture in the hot summers of south Texas and provided the mycelium to help break things down. That coupled with compost made a good winner in my books.

My daughter helped a great deal! If it wasn't for her I would probably have only gotten one done so far.  Lots of digging, soil shuffling, wood cutting (with axe) and log dragging. 

We started with the tomato bed. This will need to be big because I plan on growing enough to can and to save seeds. Plus I would probably do a lot of grazing.

We dug down deep for this bed because it does stay humid in SA. We don't want to have to water the tomatoes all the time and risk fungus infections. I rather have to water infrequently and have the soil stay nice a moist deep down. We probably dug down a good 2 ft and lined the bottom with big logs and many limbs. We used composted dirt from a large wood and brush pile that is 10 years old, worm casting, regular compost and leaf mold all mixed together. Then I added egg shell dust, banana peels, comfrey clippings and a three gallon jug of failed mead. So basically, wood, dirt, amendments and more dirt. Then we covered it all with straw then watered it down and laid some coverings to keep the soil protected from sun, wash out and scavengers. 

Then we construction small beds the same way a few with above ground hugelkultur method. These will be for greens and maybe squash. One of these beds is home to two goji berries, so crossing fingers that the frost didn't kill them. 

I have some rough plans I sketched out. 

When I get a handle on all the beds and what is going to get placed in them I will blog more on the construction progress. The potato beds and carrots bed locations are picked out. I might bite the bullet and build a large raised bed for the potatoes and utilize large pots. I have three sweet potato varieties purchased and we will be doing some regular potatoes too.