Wednesday, May 27, 2009

WFMW: Low Maintenance Garden

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As I've mentioned in posts past, this year, we built two raised garden beds.

Let me tell you ... they are the epitome of gardening. They are fabulous, easy and LOW MAINTENANCE!!! No tilling, and no digging holes in the impossible hard ground (we have all clay and rock)!

There are many reasons to consider gardening: economical, satisfying, hormone-free, delicious. If you haven't planted a garden, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Let me tell you what I did to make the garden low maintenance:

1. First, it is a raised garden -- with new, fresh top soil and leaf compost (we purchased a truck load per bed at the nursery - a great investment in my eyes). No old weed roots to deal with.

2. I mulched, mulched, mulched. Not only does it look good, but it keeps the soil moist longer, and holds back the weeds.

So the key to a low maintenance garden? MULCH!!! (once we establish our strawberry bed, I'll use straw around the strawberries)

In the last three months, I've only had to pull approximately 4 or 5 blades of grass that have popped up. That's pretty awesome, if you ask me! I'll keep everyone posted on how we do in the summer months with weeds.

5 comments:

Aisling said...

If you're doing a raised bed, the other way is to use the square foot gardening method. That's what we're doing.

mamajessica said...

I agree that the use of square foot gardening is even more frugal and less work. We are giving it a try soon.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

bridget {bake at 350} said...

We're doing a raised bed this year, too. I guess I need to get some mulch in there! I love the close up shots of your goodies! :)

The Halbert Home said...

I am new to gardening but my grandma told me to put newspaper under my mulch and it would curb weeds too.

dixymiss said...

Pardon my ignorance (gardening newbie), but what do you use for mulch?