Through A Writer’s Garden with Anne. B. Cole

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Anne B. Cole, Author Catherine Castle's garden blog, modified raised beds, Soul Mate Publishing, Souls Entwined, Souls Estranged, Through a Writer's Garden, weed-free gardening

 

A Practically Weed-free Way to Garden

Anne B. Cole

Thank you, Catherine for inviting me back to A Writer’s Garden. Every gardener enjoys eating fresh produce straight from the backyard. With three teens and two jobs, people ask me how I find the time to grow a garden and keep the weeds out. Over twenty-five years of trial and many errors, I’ve found the easiest way to maintain a vegetable garden in my backyard.

Planting the garden is easy…How do I keep the weeds out without hours of back breaking labor?

My secret? Modified raised beds.

In April, my husband tills my 15’ by 50’ garden with a walk behind rototiller. I take a shovel and scoop shallow paths between three-foot beds. They can be bigger, but I like this size because I can easily reach across pick produce from one side. I simply dump the dirt from the path onto the bed. This raises the bed a few inches. Then I rake it smooth. The beds created are only about six inches higher than the paths. Excess rain drains to the paths so no veggies are flooded. As I mow the lawn, I place the grass clippings in the paths so I never need to weed them. This adds nutrients back into the soil as an added benefit.

After planting, I quickly erect a temporary fence from stakes and three-foot chicken wire to prevent the rabbits from feasting on tender plants. The fence keeps most wildlife out. Humans are permitted to walk in the paths, but never on the beds. This keeps soil in the beds soft, loose, and easy to weed.

Once all of the seeds and plants are in, I sit back and watch from my writing spot. Once a week, I hoe in between the plants to keep the weeds out. By July, the plants are big enough they shade new weeds out so I only need to hoe if I’m replanting late beans, onions, or carrots. Some plants grow so fast they cover not only their bed, but adjacent ones as well. The rabbits stay out and the veggies thrive.

After we enjoy the yummy veggies, I remove the larger debris and cover the ground with leaves from the yard. Instead of raking, I mow the leaves, collecting them, and dumping them on the garden. They break down nicely over the winter in preparation for next year’s garden.

The raised beds weather a bit over the summer so by fall they aren’t as pronounced. When my husband tills again in the spring all the beds disappear and I start over. I have permanent strawberry and blueberry beds on the ends of the garden which are not tilled every year.

My family enjoys showing and sharing our garden with friends. Picking produce and eating it within minutes is a taste adventure like no other. Even my pickiest of teens will grab a green bean or snap pea from the garden and eat it raw.

If you have any questions about gardening with modified raised beds, leave a comment today or visit my website www.annebcole.com and click on the CONTACT tab. I’m happy to answer any questions.

Thanks, again, Catherine for hosting me here today on A Writer’s Garden.

Happy Gardening to All!

—Anne

 

About the Author:

Anne B. Cole loves to read a wide variety of books. Her first book, Souls Entwined, is a time traveling adventure with supernatural spirits, pirates, and a touch of sweet romance. All this and more are combined to attract teens through octogenarians.

Anne lives in the Midwest with her husband and three teenage children. Her hobbies include running so she can indulge in her cravings for ice cream, donuts, and chocolate chip cookie dough. The first two books of The Souls Trilogy can be found on Amazon.

Souls Entwined

Souls Estranged

Look for the final book, Souls Endure to be released Fall 2016.

Drop by Anne’s website at www.annebcole.com and visit her blog for posts on writing, recipes, gardening, and preschool activities.

 

 

Through A Writer’s Garden with Gail Sattler

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bees in crisis, Gail Sattler, Garden blog, Love in Mistletoe Springs, Solitary Pollen Bee Nest, Through a Writer's Garden

Bees, Pleeze

 

Every gardener has a wealth of information they use to grow their flowers and crops, and most of the time that varies with where everyone lives and gardens. But one thing that is universal is that in order to have fruits and vegetables and flowers, bees need to do their bee thing and pollinate all the flowers. Where I live the bees are in crisis.
I’m trying to grow some blueberries, and as expected, my bushes are not overflowing with berries like they have been in previous years. But my small bush in the middle of the three is recovering nicely, so I’m very happy for that.

As well, even though I need to search for them, I have some lovely strawberries, too. With all the rain we’ve had, and then a blast of heat, my strawberries are great and many are ready to eat.

We completely cut back our crabapple tree this spring, and it’s now the thickest and bushiest it’s ever been. There are very few crabapples on it, which isn’t necessarily bad, because I still have lots in the freezer from last year.

Although I suspect that if we had a more healthy bee population, there would be more crabapples on my tree. I bought a handy little thing to help the bees, barely over $20. It’s not a hive, so I don’t have to interact with the bees, nor do I need to get any honey out. The instructions say to just nail it to the fence or something, and it is a place for bees to lay eggs, and then it keeps the eggs safe until the bees come out, and go make a new home.

solitary pollen bee nest

As you can see it’s not very big, and will not ruin your gardenscape. In fact, it makes an interesting conversation piece! If you’re interested, here’s a link to where I bought mine. http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=70416&cat=2%2C47236 Happy gardening, and help the bees, because without them, you wouldn’t have a garden.

Go Garden!

About the Author:

Last year I had a photo of myself holding a tomato plant at the end of my article, but this year I thought I’d post something more fun, which is a photo of me with my jazz band after a gig we did for a fundraiser in a local mall. I’m the one with the bunny ears.

Gail Sattler lives in Vancouver BC Canada, where you don’t have to shovel rain, with her husband, sons, dogs, and a guinea pig who helps mow the grass on a sunny day. Gail enjoys gardening, writing, and music, and the order of that depends how hard it’s raining on the west coast. See Gail’s newest book – Love in Mistletoe Springs. You’re invited to visit Gail’s website at http://www.gailsattler.com/ Serious comedy – no kidding!

Through A Writer’s Garden with Author Jamaila Brinkley

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Catherine Castle's garden blog, Jamaila Brinkley, New Beginnings, Sweet romance, Thieves' Honor, Through a Writer's Garden

New Beginnings

I have had a fruitful (if you’ll pardon the pun) vegetable garden for the last ten years. My husband built me a fabulously large raised bed by the side of our house, and no matter what I did, how neglectful I was, if I could just get the plants in the ground sometime in April, we were rewarded all summer with herbs and vegetables from the garden. And trust me, I have been very neglectful! Between nature and I, my garden has endured overgrowth – from weeds to cucumber vines; underwatering – thank goodness for rain; and even tornadoes and earthquakes – most notably, both in one year, and that year was the one when my tomato plants grew ten feet tall!

What my garden cannot endure, however, is leaving. And that’s what we have done. Just before the end of tomato season last year, my family packed up our trowels and moved. I gathered all the tomatoes I could, ripe and unripe, from the garden, and took them with me to the new house. Some ripened; some were fried green (yum); and some just… didn’t make it. It feels a little like a metaphor for dreams, although I’m not sure what exactly is standing in for what.

Our new house is beautiful, and big, and in a much better school district, something my two-year-old twins will surely appreciate someday. But it doesn’t have a space that screams for a garden.

The old house had the perfect spot; a strip of grass that was so unused as to be useless, in between the house and driveway, perfectly sized for a raised bed. We built it, and the garden flourished while we renovated the entire house, got married, and had babies. Now, a tenant lives there. She has dogs, and doesn’t garden, although I hear that my rosemary has survived regardless.

Here in the new house, we’ve swung through April and into May, and I haven’t planted anything. I’ll be buying my herbs and tomatoes from the farmstand this year, I suspect, until I can figure out where to put something. I love my new backyard beyond belief, and we have a fabulous patio, but a thin strip of mulch behind it is the only place the previous owners thought to leave any garden space. The layout doesn’t leave room for my preferred raised beds – the sunniest area of the yard is the most child-friendly, and I suppose if I must choose, I have to choose my children over tomatoes. It’s the done thing. But I’ll find a way. Gardening, like life, involves planning. I’ll get there again soon.

 

About the Author:

 

Jamaila Brinkley grew up on a farm, and has always preferred to live where she can have land to roam. Her taste in gardening is decidedly vegetable in nature; her harvest regularly shows up in her kitchen. She now gardens and gambols with her two young children in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. A debut author, Jamaila’s first release is ‘THIEVES’ HONOR,’ a light historical fantasy romance which features a shy wizard, a sassy thief, and an interfering duchess in Regency London. This sweet novella is available from Soul Mate Publishing exclusively on Amazon.  You can find out more about Jamaila on her website.