Let’s talk gardens! I finally have a garden plan down, because we had some time this week to plan out our garden area, and collect materials to get it all set up. This time around I chose to do a Hugelkultur style garden, but there is so many different ways to do it! This will only be our second garden we’ve ever done, so we have a lot to learn still. I will be sharing our design plans, the why behind our hugelkultur decision, and best of all, what we plan to grow!
Hugelkultur Style and Why
I decided Hugelkultur beds would be best, for a few reasons. However, incase some didn’t know, Hugelkultur is a very beneficial, horticultural method of gardening that allows you to plant on top of a mound of plant waste and debris. I was hoping for in ground beds, but because our property was a squatter property it is still unfortunately riddled with broken glass shards everywhere. We had to find a solution for our garden, because we knew there was just no way to find every piece of glass. We also luckily have plenty of plant waste, and rocks after all the property clearing we had done. Why not put that all to good use?
Funny enough, I said in my last post that we didn’t have a garden plan to share yet! But we very happily were able to do it sooner. My husband is taking it slow with the bigger projects, as he is currently down with a bug of some sort. Meter is finished though, and now he has begun fixing the porch and roof of our little cottage. Some siding came yesterday, so I’m sure he will start siding soon as well. Can’t wait for those before and after pictures!
Back to The Garden
Anyways, back to the garden. Apart from those 2 reasons on why we chose this style of beds, I just really liked how it looked! I love a very natural looking, cottage garden. We also can’t spend a lot of money trying to make it look “aesthetic” either. It will serve it’s purpose well, and it’s completely free to set it up, apart from the labor!
Like shown in the picture above, layering the beds takes (in order) a wood base, hot or green material, growing soil, and a mulch for the soil. So far, we’ve collected the borders of the beds and the wood base. I just have to round up the rest of the layers from around the property.
Garden Design For Our Backyard
The people who put in our cottage, had a small stone path up to the porch. I unburied what I could find and now we have a path up to our garden and Rabbitry! The Rabbitry will be directly beside the garden for easy bunny gold (fertilizer) transferring. I have about a 60×15 foot area for our garden, with opportunity to expand if we cleared some more brush. I will make small beds bordered with rocks for leafy greens, root veggies, fruits, etc then I will have bigger log bordered beds for squash, cabbage, potatoes, etc.
It doesn’t look like much right now, but it will soon.
What We Plan to Plant
We plan for so many things, as we have so many ideas to help the land flourish. However, this first year will be small compared to our true desires. In the main garden we will have;
Carrots, Potatoes, Winter Squash, Zucchini, Pole Beans, Cabbage, Lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs.
Outside the garden, we plan to have plenty fruits. Strawberries I’m thinking will stand alone, though I haven’t decided where to put them yet. Blueberries will be top priority because it’s our oldest daughter’s favorite. But eventually, we will add apples, raspberries, mulberries, cherries, plums, and different varieties as well.
This place will be flourishing with life, that’s my hope for this little piece of land. To steward it the way the Lord has called us too.
Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”
