Why think about your vegetable garden design before planting? Thinking of you and your family’s desires, needs, and goals before planting is the single biggest thing you can do to have a garden that won’t become a burden. I have heard SO many people tell me that they started a garden one time only to give up around July when the weeds and heat became too much.
It doesn’t have to be that way – I promise!
In this section of our Vegetable Gardening 101 series, I’m going to give you my tips for designing a garden for easy care – the same techniques I have used successfully for years – so that you can have success with your garden. I want you to find the enjoyment that comes from watching what you’ve planted grow and then eating the beautiful, organic produce – without frustration or losing hope along the way.
My limited experience with gardening growing up involved having to go out and weed the little tilled garden patch we had at our house. All my sisters and I could see were a sea of weeds, but we were told there were lettuce seedlings in there somewhere. To say I dreaded this is an understatement!
and most importantly, I didn’t want to deal with the weeds.
Root crops like carrots and parsnips grow so much better and are easier to harvest.
Crops of lettuce and greens can be started earlier, as well as crops like peas.
They make gardening tasks easier- less bending, easier weeding (when needed), planting, and watering.
There’s no need to weed the permanent paths between the beds of gravel, wood chips or pavers or even clippings or straw you place yearly. The few weeds that may sprout are easy to pull.
When the beds do need weeding, the soil is loose since it hasn’t been compacted with walking so the weeds just pull up easily.
In spring before planting I can weed a 4′ x 12′ raised bed in 10 to 15 minutes with just hand tools and after that only a few weeds appear the entire remainder of the season. It’s easy to just pull them here and there when I’m out harvesting. I NEVER have to spend hours weeding the garden after planting.
You can make beds out of untreated wood, cinder blocks, stacked concrete or other stone blocks or even just raised dirt sides (though they are harder to maintain). One other benefit for people who will see the beds from their house is that it’s easy to make them look pretty and they look neat and tidy even at the end of the season with their permanent sides.
How much time do you have & how much produce your family needs. My big advice here is to START SMALL. You can always add more later. It took us 3-4 years to fully complete the plan I show above. We started with the 6 long raised beds and added from there.
What do you want included? Just raised beds for vegetables or do you want to include more permanent things like fruiting trees and shrubs or perennial vegetables like asparagus?
The direction of the sun. Aligning your beds north-south, for instance, minimizes shadows from rising and setting sun patterns.
In addition to your overall garden plan, take time each season to quickly plan your garden crops, rotating them from bed to bed and keeping track of what did well and what you liked (or didn’t).
Rotation of crops is a key pillar of organic gardening, since it lessens the chance of losing plants to soil-bourne diseases and you do not want to spend time, energy, or money growing something again that you forgot didn’t do well for your garden or family’s needs. A simple list of what you planted each year with brief notes is enough.
The 6 longer raised beds are my main vegetable beds. They are 4 feet x 12 feet with 10″ sides and I use soaker hoses to water at the roots. It takes about 20 minutes to plan this on paper, copying from the previous year and rotating crops through them each year to lessen disease and group like plants together (i.e., tomatoes in one, broccoli and cabbage in another).
You can read more about how I plan my vegetable garden here.
Our garden also consists of 4 larger beds with edges made from 4″x4″ pieces of wood. These are what I call my “nontraditional raised beds” since I do have to walk on the soil some when planting and harvesting. They are about 9’x20′ and I use these larger beds to grow corn wee-free, potatoes, dry beans, squash and pumpkins.
Tilling actually PRODUCES more weeds!
Weeds that propagate from the smallest root fragment (think dandelion and bindweed) will come back ten-fold after being cut up.
Dormant weed seeds (that can live for years in the soil!) that need light to germinate will be brought to the surface so they can sprout anew. That’s why there always seem to be more weeds after tilling – because there are!
Tilling can also damage the tilth of the soil, especially if it’s done too early creating clumps of sod that never break up.
SO, how what to do with large beds that look like this in spring? I swear, if I thought I had to deal with this, I would run screaming far, far away…to the market to buy produce, ha!
In February or March of each year (I’m up north – adjust for your seasons) cover your larger beds with black plastic, holding it down with rocks, bricks, wood, or whatever you can find. The plastic + the sun’s power will kill all the weeds underneath in the month or two before planting.
Then it’s simply a matter of removing the plastic and raking up all the debris. There are usually a few perennial weed roots like dandelion that need to be remove, but not many. After that, add a layer of compost, rake it smooth, and plant! That’s it! (You can read more details of my Easy No-Till Planting Method here).
These beds have never been tilled and have never had herbicides used on them.
To create them in the beginning, place your edging, put large pieces of cardboard over the grass (mowed short) and fill them with about 6″ of manure and soil (a 1-inch layer of manure topped with purchased soil/compost mix). Then plant – really. I even planted corn the first year in the shallow soil above the cardboard and it grew great, never falling over since the cardboard composted as the season passed.
Using these 5 tips to design a vegetable garden for easy care means I absolutely DO NOT spend hours weeding my vegetable beds – and you don’t have to, either!
If I could shout it from the rooftops, I would! Since I can’t (won’t?), I have written lots more about my low-weeding approach (and some tips for flower beds, too) that you can see by pursuing our weeds and weeding category.
There will be some planning up front and a small outlay of money for the beds, but you will save hundreds of hours of weeding and eliminate the wasteful watering of paths that occur in the “traditional” method. PLUS, you’ll be able to grow things on your timetable and not be at the whim of wet or dry spring weather determining when you can till to be able to plant.
Ready to plan your vegetable garden design for easy care?
What would you estimate the cost of the lumber or cement blocks, the compost, and manure, the black plastic, and soaker hoses for these simple raised bed gardens…say, one bed, four feet wide and 12 feet long?
Gosh, that would be pretty hard because there are so many variables. For instance, in our beds we found the lumber at a recycled building place and the first couple inches of filling was free horse manure (too many weed seeds to be on the top, but it made a good base). We also have a place where we can get a load of garden compost for $20, which I know not everyone has. You may be able to find some things to build your beds on Craigslist or someplace. The soakers are about $12 and black plastic is more expensive. You can also build a raised bed without sides to save money, though there will be a bit more weeding on the sides where you can’t plant because they’re sloped. Hope that helps you think it through some!
I’m sorry, I’m confusing myself here. I use black landscape cloth for the garden. Not black plastic. I did try to find red plastic mulch, but no luck. So what do I do now?
How deep do I put the cow manure?
I’m not sure, Noreen. I just put what I have available, usually a couple inches and then scratch it into the surface. Does that sound doable?
Very doable and about what I figured.
I am going to do the no till. Lay down the cow manure, scratch it in and plant my plants. And then, I am not going to put anything down and see what happens. No mulch, no hay, no black plastic, not landscape cloth, just cow manure, about 2 inches thick. Maybe a little more.
By the way, I don’t use soaker hose. I guess we get enough rain to keep the garden fairly hydrated. Maybe once or twice a summer, I will run my hose over if it’s too dry and let it go. I also have rain barrels that help out a lot from time to time.
Many thanks for bearing with me on this.
That’s great if you don’t need to irrigate, Noreen! I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, either. 🙂 Hope that goes well with you – just know that if you see a lot of weeds sprouting, you can always lay down grass clippings or hay then – there’s no time limit, so it’s good to experiment so you only need to do what YOUR garden needs!
Hello, I just have a small patch, probably 20 x 20. I don’t think I can do the raised gardens. Not enough space. But I love the no till idea. I have been tilling every spring and then laying down black plastic. I then plant my tomatoes, zuchini, summer squash and tried hart covairs, but they did not do well. a few pepper plants, but no luck with them either.
Then I put mulch over the black plastic because I hate the look of black plastic. Okay, that being said, I am now ready to do no till. What is the best type of compost for me to buy? I have tilled in pnly cow manure in the past. I await your answer.
Many thanks for such a well written and followable article.
If I only had a 20×20 space, Noreen, I would still add a couple raised beds, either along the side or two at the front or back. Mainly because that’s the easiest way to grow root crops like carrots and beets, AND because I can start planting lettuce and spinach a lot earlier. It’s up to you and what you want to grow, Noreen. And you can definitely do raised beds that are just mounded soil with the lower paths mulched with straw or something. And that’s how I’d do the no-till in an area like yours.
You didn’t mention how you watered under the plastic. Do you use soakers? The tomatoes and peppers should’ve loved the warmth from the plastic – in fact my peppers right now are planted with a black plastic mulch. And I do often add straw over the top of the plastic, it looks better and keeps the sun off it, so it lasts longer.
Sorry – on to your question: Cow manure is fine, as is chicken – both need to be WELL rotted or they will grow weeds. Don’t use horse, as they eat so many seed heads that it’s near impossible to compost it enough at home to kill them all. I actually find it easiest to buy commercially composted barnyard blend compost – we can get the large amounts we need, it’s not too expensive ($20 for a truck full), and it hardly ever grows weeds like home-composted blends. Hope that answers it!
Thanks for the helping. Can I come back at you? Can I also use landscape cloth rather than black plastic to go over the compost?
I tried to find barnyard compost, but Newport, RI doesn’t seem to have any within easy reach. What I plan then, is to put the cow manure, which comes in bags from Home Depot on top of the soil and then place the landscape cloth over the top and start planting. Is that the way to go?
Next year I will do the raised beds.
The cow manure from HD is fine, Noreen – that’s well rotted and shouldn’t produce seeds. I’m sort of confused about the landscape cloth/black plastic question, though. I only use the plastic to kill the weeds, then I lay the compost layer, plant, and use soakers to water only the plants. The only time I use a plastic mulch is for warm-weather-loving plants- tomatoes and peppers. And then it’s red plastic mulch for the tomatoes (proven to increase production 20%). You don’t have to use it at all. If you’re wanting to cover the empty spaces, grass clippings or hay will do great – you can even lay down newspaper under the hay in paths for extra weed protection. Is that what you were wanting the landscape cloth for?
You’re saying that you use the black plastic to kill weeds in the winter months then remove it and toss it.
I usually just plant tomatoes, summer squash, zuchini and peppers. Can I continue to use it. I can’t find the red plastic mulch.
I would use the landscape cloth to cover the whole garden. After I put down the cow manure. Is that not a good way to go? Should I just not put any plastic down at all?
Im getting the gardening grove on in December. Thank you for your wonderful posts.
Your huge garden of raised beds is amazing! And a great inspiration! Thanks for all the useful information.
Very good article, very interesting! I’ve been tilling my traditional garden (http://thecountrybasket.com/my-vegetable-garden-how-i-planted-and-the-results-part-1/), but doing things the way you are describing makes a lot of sense. I am planning on trying the plastic, just gotta find it. Home Depot didn’t have it.
Oh, and I think the hose in your garden looks just fine; no need to clean it up, you’ll just have to bring it back out again! 😉 It makes it look like an active garden in full use.