Sarah your garden looks fantastic! A garden like this is possible when investing time and hard work.
After the disaster that a storm has left me with in my first year of vegetable garden, and having to divide my gardening time between a large home garden and the veggies one, it's so inspiring to see yours flourishing. Thanks for sharing and congratulations!

Carol

Your garden looks great! You should be proud the hard work paid off so well.

I agree -- something for this newbie to aspire to! :)

V.

Hey white

Your garden looks delightful!

Since Katrina possibly contaminated our soil, I've had to build planters to grow vegetables in. I know it sounds kinda dumb, but I'm just getting around to sending soil samples to LSU to be checked for contamination.

This year's attempt at creating soil from scratch didn't exactly work out. But, one day in the next few years, I hope to have a garden looking half as good as yours.

...and I'm again *staring* at the pics...LOL! Really, yours and Ruthie's should be awarded prices to the nicest vegetable gardens of the forum.

Carol

Sarah...how lovely and functional...your garden looks great! I love the pea trellis and raised beds, along with wide paths and healthy plants. You have some serious fencing going on there with the chain link...lol. Kuddos on a great job! Happy harvesting :)

Your garden looks wonderful....I don't have mine in raised beds like yours but after seeing yours, I am definitely thinking about that.....As one of the folks said, it's very functional! (and pretty)

wOw! I love how neat the gravel paths make everything look. I regularly receive compliments on my garden, but if those people could compare mine to yours, they would realize what a slouch I am. Your garden is exactly what I dream of!

i have actually had people (strangers) stop by and ask to see my garden, for years i didnt want to financially commit to putting the raised beds in but this march my husband went out and started building a greenhouse for me and it just spiralled from there.
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i couldn't have this beautiful greenhouse and a less than perfect garden. i am one of those people that just cannot stand the weeds, but with all the weeding left dirt and mud which always seemed to find its way onto my kitchen floor. last year i just couldn't keep up with the weeds and i think that is what attracted so many pests... i lost EVERYTHING last year to every bug you could imagine. so i laid down landscapers fabric and got the gravel and a couple yards of loam and here we are... it wasn't nearly as expensive as i thought it would be. i can't over plant (as i ALWAYS do) leaving no room for walking and weeding is no longer an ALL DAY affair. i would recommend this kind of gardening to everyone. and on top of all that, it is pretty to look at. thanks for all the compliments, it really means a lot!! of course it isn't done yet... but is a garden every really done??!! sarah
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Thanks for the "aerial" view! I was going to ask for a layout. What are the overall dimensions?

I tried planting my big garden with some squares instead of rows, and I have to say they are kind of a pain in the neck to weed. I thought... I'll just weed one square each day, and I'll get all of them done each week. I can't stick to the schedule and end up mass-weeding once a week. Because of the variations in my soil, some squares don't seem to grow weeds at all.

I love your greenhouse. If I were you, I'd charge admission to that set-up!

thanks!! the dimensions are 30X40, this is my "second" chance garden... my first garden was smaller and just never turned out right, so when we moved i was so thankful to have a clean slate, you know to fix all the things i wish i had done... it is hard to start over when you already have your overall set-up, so moving was the thing for me... the fence was my husbands contribution, we had so many things eat our garden at our last house he insisted on making my garden "FORT KNOX" as he refers to it... and it has worked. as for the greenhouse, i have always wanted one, and after years of searching i found a picture of one i truely loved on the internet... i printed it out and it literally stayed on my refrigerator for THREE years. just a pipe dream... until this march, my husband informed me he WAS going to start it... 10 days later we have what you see in the picture!! it looks IDENTICAL to the picture although i think my dimensions are a bit bigger, and i painted mine yellow, here is what the inside looks like...
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at this point my garden was just a mass of weeds... i looked back and forth between this beautiful greenhouse and the mass of weeds that i can NEVER keep up with and thought this has to change. we have a clay based soil so the ground is easily compacted making HARD to pull the weeds out. i thought it would be expensive but it really wasn't and the amount of time and effort i have saved is priceless. this year i spend so much time gazing and just walking around my garden, whereas in past years i have always been on my hands and knees pulling weeds and never measuring up! next year i am definately lasagna gardening, this year i added loam but i dont want that added expense each year. just plan out your beds on paper, it really isn't a science, if you look closely the beds really aren't square with each other. my other problem was i always planted too much. i would make rows or squares (neither really worked for me without the beds) and it would be great until mid july when i just couldn't walk anywhere without stepping on or breaking a plant. this way even if i plant to the edges of the beds there will still be plenty of room to walk... although my pumpkins are testing that theory!!
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oh well, ive jabbered on enough, get me talking about my garden and i could go on and on and on for days... hope i have helped you all to know that this kind of garden is attainable... it was SO much easier (AND CHEAPER) than i had planned, i wish i had done this years ago.

I do a whole lot of planning too, in fact I dabble with the plan almost daily from Jan thru March to keep me calm until I can get my hands in the dirt. After 3 years I have a pretty good system, but I still have to fight the urge to over plant! I actually "humanely destroyed" some excess transplants this year. I was so proud of myself!
But, even when my garden is freshly weed free, it still doesn't have the impact that you have achieved with the raised beds and gravel. I have similar fence, but the straight edges of the beds and the uniformity of the gravel really appeal to me.
I am not a "jungle gardener". I like tidy lines!

here is the before... this must be early may i think
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Sorry sarah lynn, I didn't see any pictures of the "before", am I doing something wrong or ????

I absolutely love your garden and greenhouse. Your garden is so neat and healthy looking. I'm adding after-the-fact fencing here and there this year due to severe rabbit problems. Usually I only have to fence in the peas but this year's drought has turned the bunnies into indiscriminate bean chompers. ARGH.

thanks granite... we all do our fair share of after the fact gardening... here is the before shot, when everything was young, boy when things grow they grow and grow and grow...
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this one was taken 4 days ago...
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Wow I thought I had the world's best garden but you have me beat...Beautiful to look at.....

ruthieg i would love to see a pic of yours... can you post one? sarah

That is something to be proud of!!! Hope you get lots of fruit that you can enjoy all through the fall and winter.

One question: Do you ammend or fertlize your soil any differently for each crop, particularly your cukes. My cukes have yellow leaves and only 3 fruit with no flowers left.

hi ham01. this is my first season with the beds, we have clay based soil (it is terrible), to help fill the beds i mixed it with dried grass clippings (cause that is what i had on hand) and added a few yards of loam through out, i have never ammended the soil before and i really just wanted to fill the beds. since then i have learned about lasagna gardening and i have started a compost bin. i don't think i could be more excited about making my own dirt, it is just as much fun as the garden.... my cukes are in a bed that is primarily loam. although i have successfully grown them in the clay. make sure yours get adequate watering, we have been in a long dry spell that just ended last night into today (it must be our first rain in 1 1/2 mos.) last year mine didn't get even watering and they were SO bitter we actually threw them out (too bad i didn't have the compost then...) here is a link from another post that i thought was so interesting in diagnosing your veggie dilemmas, maybe look at that, it sounds like there may be something wrong and it may not be your soil at all. good luck. sarah

Here is a link that might be useful: identifying veggie (cukes) diseases

Wow, I love the garden, I was wondering how you water, do you have irrigation or sprinklers, I built a couple of raised beds and and ran soaker hoses through them, my beds are similar to yours, I ran Poly Ethelene(sp?) hose underground in the pathways and to the water on my house, I put some quick connects on my hose, and in 10 seconds I'm watering, I put a dial timer on the quick connect and I just set and forget on my way to work in the morning, It's worked out great, I dont know if you need to start lasagna gardening, I mulch with straw, and at the end of the season till in the straw and then plant a cover crop, usually alfalfa, till it in the spring and pretty quickly I have really improved my soil, I also rake alot of my leaves on to the beds and till them in. Well the garden looks great!

i don't use irrigation or sprinkler i use the good old fashioned sprayer nozzle. last year i had a sprinker in the middle attached to a pole that went around in cirles, and while the middle was soaked the outside edges were bone dry so this year i just decided to water myself. i go out early - sometimes between 5-6am and it is my quiet time in the garden and i love it. also, if i didn't water regularly (by hand) i would not have caught many pests that threatened to destroy me, while watering i really get to give each plant the attention it deserves, lets hope in the end it gives me all the veggies i deserve!! my garden is big, but lets face it, its not that big. that water timer thing sounds like it would work out great for vacations. my garden keeps me in town for the summer, i cannot expect my neighbors to spend an hour every morning babying my garden. thanks. sarah

Sarah, After staking your vining veggies what did you use to anchor the twine/rope that hangs from the stakes.

i attached screws to the bed itself (although next year i may either bend them or actually use those little tea cup hooks because if you don't get the angle just right they can easily come off), the twine is one LONG and CONTINUOUS length that i tied to one screw and then went up and around the top and down to another screw, etc. then i took another length of twine and wrapped it around the top, it kinda tightened it up just a little and made it much more appealing to the eye. if you don't have raised beds i think plain old garden stakes in the ground would also work. sarah

I am new to the forum and that is an absolutely beautiful garden. Maybe someday I too will have a place to dig around in like that! Lovely!

Beautiful!! Your DH did a lovely job on the greenhouse, and your raised beds are delightful. If you get bored, you wanna come over and build some in my yard? ;^) We did put in one raised flower bed and it is so much easier to keep weeded. Thinking about doing at least some of the veggies that way next year. I'm not getting any younger and "Old Arthur" has started to make his presence felt so getting on my hands and knees to weed under plants is not an option any more. *Sigh* Unless someone can invent a hoe that can tell the difference between a weed and a veggie!!!

just for kicks and anyone who wants to see what a difference a year can make... this was last year.... oh how i hate clay!!!
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