Our original plan was to get to work right after the snowmelt and build some raised garden boxes and another area for above ground planting for things like corn, potatoes and pumpkins that need more space. Mother Nature had other plans.
The snow melted quickly leaving the usual wet and muddy ground for a bit. As the temperatures rose, everything dried up fairly quickly and the wildfire danger grew. My husband spent most of May involved with supporting communities during the wildfires in northern Alberta. He had little time for building garden boxes or moving soil and wood chips.
The last few days things have slowed down for him giving him his evenings back. One evening this week, he decided to build these two raised bed garden boxes. He used 1X6 spruce and decided to try the method of torching the wood prior to building. The torching is supposed to prevent it from rotting as quickly and bugs don’t like burned wood.
We laid down brown cardboard and a layer of packing paper/newspaper under where the garden boxes would go. This makes it unnecessary to kill off the grass and weeds in that spot. The cardboard will also hold some of the water as it slowly breaks down which the plants can draw from. We had triple mix left over from our tree planting exploits so we filled the two beds to the top.
The wood chips between the boxes, on top of cardboard, should keep the weeds down and offers a space to move between the boxes.
I planted some peas, wax beans, cilantro, Thai basil and radishes in the boxes. It is a bit later than I usually plant, but all those plants should still mature before our first frost.
The Haskap, Raspberry and Hazelbert areas have been wood chipped and deer fenced to hopefully protect them from our wildlife visitors. Our plan would be to add more plants each spring bringing these areas closer to the garden boxes.
For now we will just use these smaller enclosures for the plants. It is hard to picture, but we plan to eventually box in the entire area encompassing the Haskaps, Raspberries, garden boxes and raised ground beds in a large rectangle garden. Our neighbour has done something similar adding a high fence for protection.
As tiny as the boxes look in the large empty space, I can start to see what the filled in area could look like. I am definitely not the visionary that my husband is nor do I have as much patience waiting to see the finished project. I do now understand a bit better that creating a large outdoor garden can only be done one garden box at a time.
Your cousin, Guy and his wife, Christine had raised garden boxes and had a lovely crop. Good luck. .