23'x26' area. I'm going to cover this with 8 beds total. The configuration will look like this:



Once the beds are made, I will cover the black fabric with mulch. I know black fabric has flaws, but overall I think the benefits outweigh the downsides. Yesterday we put together 3 of the 2x9 and 1 of the 4x8s before it got too late to do anymore. Might do a few more this afternoon. I will be installing drip irrigation on all 8 beds.

This is what the area looked like in the morning when we started our work yesterday.



Loads of branches from when I cut down all the mature crepe myrtles last year. My back yard has been a huge mess for all of 2023 and I'm finally getting the back yard under control. Goal: make it look like a gardener lives here! Trish is out of town this week and so when she gets back maybe she'll have a nice yard to return to.

Dave, are you going to be using the Crape Myrtles branches in your beds? I would be afraid they will sprout.

Fabric-- Oh, Dave..

Just yesterday I was gathering weird little black fluff balls where my old fabric is really fraying apart. I am about to ditch all the old fabric for good. Granted, it is years old. I used it in the veg garden paths, and take it up and move it now and then. I've also used it to cover the fall leaf pile, trying to keep it moist and collected.

I think my garden paths this year will be mulched first in dried up chickweed and then- we now know where we can get bulk wood mulch, so that may be my choice.

I planted swiss chard, beet, and bush beans yesterday

@Dave, what does mulch on top of the black fabric achieve?

Well, my post got some responses!

ardesia said: Dave, are you going to be using the Crape Myrtles branches in your beds? I would be afraid they will sprout.

Yes, I will be using them in hugelkultur in the beds. They will not sprout because I cut these trees down a year ago and the wood is bone dry and most assuredly dead.

sallyg said: I am about to ditch all the old fabric for good. Granted, it is years old.

I have grass (a weird mix of bermuda, Saint Augustine and other oddball weeds) and I don't see a good solution to give me a clean area other than to cover it. I'm certainly not going to use roundup or something to kill all that, so fabric it is.

But I didn't cheap out. I got Pro-5 Weed Barrier - 5 oz woven, needle-punched, polypropylene fabric designed for professional and commercial use. 7 year life when covered is my expectation. Until someone comes up with a better way to cover grass effectively, this is the option. I'm open to feedback of alternative ideas!

_TheZenMaster said: @Dave, what does mulch on top of the black fabric achieve?

Several things: It extends the life of the fabric, cools it down, and offers a more comfortable path to walk on. The fabric gets HOT in the sun! But when covered with mulch, it'll be nice and cool.

I am teasing of course. Sounds like a good plan

Using landscape fabric under mulched paths or under raised beds is a totally different thing than trying to use it in a perennial & shrub area. I don't see it getting in your way unless you try to do something completely different there. I just got some good quality (I hope) stuff from Greenhouse Megastore to use under my new galvanized raised bed rings.

Unfortunately, I don't think anything will stop the shoots from the nearby Peanut Butter Shrub. I really do love that tree, but I would only advise planting it in the middle of an area you'll be mowing, because it's determined to create a thicket.

Dave, years ago we cut down some crapes in early fall and left the long straight branches laying on the ground in the woods. The following spring I used the branches for tomato stakes and by July I noticed there were some unusual leaves among the tomatoes and sure enough, those branches had rooted and leafed out. We shared many crapes that year. Hopefully yours will have truly died by now, crapes are hard to get rid of.

My tomato seedlings that I have been growing are huge. They just grew so fast this year. Big enough to plant out 2 weeks ago. But too early to plant out around here.

Anyway this morning I took them outside and put them in the shade for starting the hardening off. It is warm enough in the daytime to start them off. I will bring them back inside later.

I agree, some days are just perfect for exposing them to outside, at any stage, in careful 'doses'.

They need that hadening off period before planting out.

dave said:

My only comment is on the layout. Having had a few two foot wide aisles, I will never again do that. Three feet needs to be a minimum width. I am not a large person but a two foot width is difficult to kneel and work the beds. Two foot aisles are also difficult to navigate with some wagons or wheelbarrows. Just my opinion.

critterologist said: ... I just got some good quality (I hope) stuff from Greenhouse Megastore to use under my new galvanized raised bed rings.

And I will hope you got some good quality galvanized raised bed rings.

I was sorely disappointed in these. This is the first one I have removed and at the end of the gardening season, more will be coming out.

The aggravations I encountered are mentioned in my blog. https://garden.org/blogs/view/...

I'd tend to agree with Kristi, a 2ft wide path is going to get very narrow when the plants get big and bushy. Considering things like good air flow around the plants and such, what about just making the 4 x 8 beds 3 x 8 instead?

At the school garden we put in 4 x 8 beds originally and we found they were hard to reach into the middle of the bed even for adults (we're all ladies, so maybe a shorter reach than you'd have, Dave). But the kids certainly couldn't reach the middles of the beds, and we'd have to watch that they didn't step into the beds to plant and weed etc. When we expanded the garden we made 3 x 10 beds instead, and even the kindergartners could reach then.
mulching with hay
I'll bet all your kids are getting pretty big now, Dave? But I know you have some girls in the family . . . are they all gardeners like you and Trish?

Good feedback on all of this, thank you.

Regarding the layout, you will see that I do have 3' between most of the beds. The only 2' path is the one between the 4x8s and the more narrow ones. In real life it's actually a very small area that is restricted to 2' and you don't spend time working in those areas. It restricts to 2' but then opens back up because you have the pathway behind you. I'll try to get some actual photos of the real beds soon. I'm open to making the pathways bigger, but it just expands the size of the garden significantly, which expands the amount of black fabric, amount of real estate used, amount of wood chips to get, etc etc. This is why I planned it the way I did. Calculated risks. I'm working in a fixed space here and even a few feet added to the overall footprint makes a pretty big difference.

We'll be creating more gardens like this in other areas in 2025 (long story on that) and we might standardize on 3' pathways for the entire thing. I'll contemplate this a bit more.

dyzzypyxxy said: I'll bet all your kids are getting pretty big now, Dave? But I know you have some girls in the family . . . are they all gardeners like you and Trish?

Of course!! Our youngest is 7 and our oldest is 25 and they are all committed gardeners.

dyzzypyxxy said: At the school garden we put in 4 x 8 beds originally and we found they were hard to reach into the middle of the bed even for adults

It can be but 4x8 is a pretty standard raised bed size and if you can access it from either side then really you're only having to reach 2 feet into the bed. That really is doable, and the sizable benefits of a 4' bed are enough to warrant the slight inconvenience. That's my thinking, anyway. I have always used 4' for all my beds. I do admit that those 2.5' wide beds are pretty nice, though! I have four of them going in and I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do.

yuk on those galvanized rings, Dave! I ordered the same ones a friend put in a couple years ago, so hopefully they'll last a few years at least.

Your youngest is seven, how did that happen so quickly, I am getting really old.

Miss Rita our Mator Queen, how many are you gonna plant this year?

critterologist said: yuk on those galvanized rings, Dave! I ordered the same ones a friend put in a couple years ago, so hopefully they'll last a few years at least.

These are the beds I'm using:

https://vegogarden.com/collect...

Not galvanized. They are coated with a material that provides a supposed 20+ year lifespan. I did my research and am satisfied that they will hold up a long time.

ardesia said: Dave, years ago we cut down some crapes in early fall and left the long straight branches laying on the ground in the woods. The following spring I used the branches for tomato stakes and by July I noticed there were some unusual leaves among the tomatoes and sure enough, those branches had rooted and leafed out. We shared many crapes that year. Hopefully yours will have truly died by now, crapes are hard to get rid of.

Crapes? Grapes?