Expanding the Veggie Patch

You can see from this picture exactly how steep the slope is on our property. We'd decided long ago that we needed to terrace it in order to really be able to do anything with it. We didn't decide to expand the veggie patch until last fall, though.

At the bottom of the picture, you can see the beds we've started. They kind of look like graves. We are using the 'Lasagna' no-dig method for creating the raised veggie beds. What you do is layer materials that you have collected to create what is basically a slow compost heap. Leaves, grass, peat moss, dirt, compost, saw dust, manure, just about anything you can get ahold of. Eventually, the mound will become a very nice, rich black dirt that will give you fantastic results with anything you plant. We may frame them in, we're not sure yet.

We used the hay bales and the dirt we'd collected from terracing this area. You can see the table in the middle of the picture, there is a screen on top. Behind the screen is our Kubota lawn tractor with a load of dirt. A couple of the beds have leaves at the bottom thanks to my neighbors.

You can see the two huge round hay bales we bought at what we thought was very reasonable ($30/ea). They will go a loooong way for us. Off the left of the picture is our greenhouse. I'll be writing a post on that in the near future.