Garden Dreams- Our Journey With Raised Beds

“Why try to explain miracles to your children when you can have them plant a garden.” Janet Kilburn Phillips

Gardening is my zen. I have sweet memories of gardening with my grandmother, Eleanor, in Texas as a child.

My grandmother grew up on a farm and was a huge gardener— mostly flower gardens. She even ended up winning some awards. When I was with her, I remember waking up to pecan rolls and cranberry juice. Mostly, I loved walking out in her yard in the early mornings, in our pajamas, to feed the birds and visit her greenhouse and flower gardens. The sweet smell of the warm Texas dirt and humid air will never get old for me. I truly believe this is where my love for gardening started. My mother also helped fuel my passion as she also gained a love of gardening from her mother.

At each of our homes we have had raised garden beds. None like the other, but I feel I have had scattered success throughout the years and have been able to grow and learn from each.

Most recently, we were excited to create a large garden of raised beds on our land. We googled ideas for garden design, fencing, soil and general inspiration. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to learn from other blogs that inspired our garden.

First, we built a deer fence around the perimeter of our garden— because we live in their country! The two things that bring the most demise to our gardens are deer and hail! We planned the space to be larger than we currently want so we can always GROW, MORE!!

Our second focus was to have a consistent watering system via irrigation/sprinklers. This is key! I have struggled for years properly watering my gardens. Without a doubt, having consistent watering tied to our sprinklers has been a huge key to our success.

We built our own raised beds. They measure 4x8 or 4x12 and are about 16 inches tall with a cap.

Our beds were a great project for the kids and Joe to build. My hard work including grading them into the hill to make them level. But I always enjoy a good labor project.

As for the soils we used our neighbors “mulch” on the bottom. This consisted of manure and hay turned over and composted over time. The mulch was full of worms (good indicator of soil health) and it proved to be amazing for our cultivation. For the top layer, I combined store-bought bags of dirt and top soil.

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” -May Sarton

Over the years I have grown a variety of plants/vegetables. I, historically, have mostly purchased them as “starts” versus growing them from seed.

More recently, I have started using seeds as well as began propagating some of my own seeds. In fact, one of my favorite times if the year is when my seed catalogue arrives from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds https://www.rareseeds.com/ this is like Christmas to me!

The beauty of using seeds is you save so much money! I start some of my seeds indoors starting in March/April. In Colorado, I do not start planting seeds in the garden until late April or early May. We often have freezes past mid-May, which can ruin any crop/seed already planted.

Due to the fact we have such a short growing season in Colorado, we have to start indoors early. Some of my super-dedicated friends start their seeds indoors in January and February (mostly tomatoes and peppers). I am so grateful for my community and that they share some starts with me and I swap them for our honey!

There is something so beautiful about seeds sprouting. It is a very gratifying process and so fun to watch them grow and take life.

Here is one of my garden maps:

I start off with good intention to record everything but then I often add more in the ground without reflecting it on the map!

This year we grew: Swiss chard, arugula, romaine, mixed greens, golden and red beets, asparagus, lemon cucumbers, Nantes and Kyoto carrots, russet potatoes, yellow squash, zuchinni, green and purple tomatillos, pumpkins, four varieties of tomatoes, strawberries, snap peas, purple bok choy, basil, thyme, rosemary, chives, dill, jalepenos, radishes and long beans.

“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” -Janet Kilburn Phillips

Each fall I take notes on the successes and failures of the garden with hopes of improvement for the next year. I have had several challenges in my gardening adventures. Here are a few I am working on and have learned from:

Overcrowding: I often plant seeds too close to each other. My carrots and radishes were way to close together which causes the veggies to be small or intertwined with each other. I am thinking next year I will plant carrots around the perimeter of my whole garden to try and space them out.

I also have planted perennial flowers and veggies near my tomato plants. The problem with this was that my tomatoes were huge and they covered many of these flowers and veggies which reduced their water and sun intake. Most of them died.

Water: I have overhead sprinklers on my raised beds that water them 3 times a week. This has been very successful overall. However, if we have a dry spell with no rain for weeks I have to supplement with a garden hose sprinkler. Also when my tomatoes get so large they have blocked the sprinklers so many plants in the middle of my planters do not get enough water so I have had to supplement them as well.

Fertilizing and bugs: Honestly, I have not had much of a bug issue such as (aphids or other bugs). I have fertilized my tomatoes with bone marrow in the soil to add calcium. Overall I do not use fertilizers as we are raising bees. We want to make sure we do not poison them.

My dream has always been to have too much food that we have to share with neighbors. Fortunately, my dream has come true! We love giving our extra veggies away throughout the summer its so fullfilling!

I have worked to incorporate flowers into my garden. I want to create an environment that attracts bees and birds to help pollinate my veggies and provide food for the bees! I have grown several annuals and perennial in our garden including, calendula, holly hocks, lilies, poppies, sun flowers and red hyssop.

Honestly gathering my garden bounty is one my favorite tasks. It is like Christmas seeing what has grown and how everything has developed. I feel at peace in my garden and I always joke that I love gardening because my plants don’t talk back to me!

“Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.” - Unknown

My sweet friend and her mother make these cute garden aprons that I use to gather my veggies. It ties around your waste and holds the goodies!

“My garden is my favorite teacher.” - Betsy Canas Garmon

Other than sharing our veggies, the next best thing is using them! Now, more than ever, having access to your own vegetables is like liquid gold. With produce prices rising and supply issues we feel fortunate to have fresh veggies for at least 5-6 months of the year. Some of our favorite ways we use our veggies is of course salads, zucchini zoodles, or breads, bruschetta on toast, lettuce wraps, sauted swish chard, and tomatillo sauce.

One of the funnest parts for me this year was growing potatoes for the first time. This fall we dug for potatoes and found beautiful russet potatoes. There is nothing more satisfying than a fresh baked potato. We harvested them into November this year and I am convinced we have some more we will find this spring!!!

In Colorado we have our first freeze in October in most cases. So sadly our gardening comes to an abrupt stop. This was our gathering of veggies before the first freeze! With this produce I was able to freeze diced tomatoes, make tomatillo sauce, zucchini bread and we pickled beets and jalepenos.

For our family the garden provides not only food but purpose. We hope to continue to be more self-sustaining and hope to bring joy to those around us through our garden!

Here’s to a new season of planting! This year I am adding some new additions to my garden. Purple carrots (Pusa Asita), Cucumber (China Jade), Basil (African Nunum), Brussel Sprouts (Red Rubine), Kale (Dazzling Blue), Poppy (Amazing Grey), Scabiosa (Summer Fruits) Tomatoes (Brad’s Atomic Grape), Yarrow (Colorado Mix), Cabbage (Red Express) and Celery (Chinese Pink)!

I love using my garden greens as flower arrangements. I do not have many flowers in my garden so I used calendula, potatoes, dill and radish gone to seed!

2022 Update… We had a very late spring this year and had very little moisture in late spring and early summer. This caused our garden to grow much slower. Due to this and my garden being slow I planted more and more seeds in the ground which made a explosion of plants occur by mid summer! Impatience led to over crowding in many of my flower beds! I had to laugh at myself.

My friend Cecilia encouraged me to grow Lacy Phacelia’s they are great for our pollinators.

Overall, the garden brought us lots of bounty and joy this year. I was excited to have grown and harvested onions, garlic, sweet melons and kale, all of which were new for me this year. My attempts at growing celery and cabbage failed. My brussel sprouts and pumpkins were very late this year so I plan on starting them earlier this year. My tomatoes and tomatillos exploded this year. We enjoyed many evenings with fresh pico de gallo and made a large batch of tomatillo green enchilada sauce and salsas. I also canned some refrigerator dill pickles and pickled peppers!

One of the best science experiments I had this year was adding a new raised bed. I did not have my neighbors amazing soil/compost from prior years to add to it this time so I purchased bulk “growers mix” for soil. My other raised beds have 2-3 year old soil full of worms and beautiful rich soil. So my new bed with its store bought soil proved to be horrible and less than fruitful. I even added compost and top soil to it. I threw worms in it but the seeds and plants I put in it were not happy. They took about two months to finally thrive. Strong soils matter!

My beautiful soil from my good raised garden beds!

Each year I try be a smarter gardener. There is so much that we leave behind in gardening. I am working on saving seeds from my veggies and flowers in lieu of buying more seeds each year. I also read a book “The Kindred Life,” by Christine Marie Bailey and was inspired to make my own calendula salve. I grow calendula flowers in my garden every year they are very prolific. I know it has lots of healing properties but have never done anything with it. I picked them to dry for my future salve that I made!

My homemade calendula salve with cosmetic grade bee’s wax, shea butter and calendula soaked in almond, olive and coconut oil.

I have read about covering my garden beds for the winter but never tried it. I decided this year to try covering my beds to protect the soils. I chose to do it later than I should have…we had a -30 freeze this January and I should have covered my dirt before then but better late than never. I chose to cover them with some horse manure, leaves and hay. I hope it helps protect my soil and insulate it. My goal is to add compost to my beds in the spring both purchased compost and some we make at our farmette. Sadly my drum compost bin had mass death of worms during our crazy freeze. Luckily I found one surviving worm and hope he can create more friends or find more survivors. I also plan on building a compost bin out of pallets this spring to start processing our chicken and bunny manure at our barn!

Last year I had lofty goals of planting seeds earlier indoors. I started in March and I think it was a bit too early. I learned I need to move my seed starters into larger pots. I also struggle with them being too wet or too dry sometimes. My favorite is when I start hardening them off I put them on my porch a few hours a day and this last spring we had so much wind so many of my seed starters blew away or I lost the seed labels. That was an adventure. This year I do plan on starting a few seeds early as they need more growing/gestation time!

This year I plan to add sweet potatoes, radishes, garlic, lemon squash, napa cabbage and raspberries to my gardens.

2023 Update…. Well Colorado experience a record breaking year for moisture. We received over 12 inches of rain between mid may and mid June which is nearly our annual rain/snow fall. Our cool and wet summer continued through mid July. This made some plants thrive and many others struggled. Overall the 2022 our drier year really provided a lot more produce than this year did. I have really realized how much the weather impacts my garden even with an irrigated garden. The lack of sun and wetness made some plants wilt or never even seed.

My successes this year were my strawberries they were so happy. I had such a bounty of strawberries that I was able to make two jars of jam. Kale, lettuce and snap peas were prolific most of the summer.

The plants that struggled this year were my beets, swiss chard, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and

Happy Planting!

“A man’s heart away from nature grows hard.” Standing Bear, Oglala