Location, Location, Location
My first problem to overcome with placement of my garden is sunlight. I don't have too many spots that break through the tree canopy. The second problem that I need to overcome are critters that like to nibble. Critters like deer, racoons, rabbits, armadillo, opossums, and squirrels. I think I've spent more time worrying about these problems than what I'm going to plant. Given these two limitations, I've decided on a location just off my garage along the driveway. The house opens the tree canopy and the spot I picked SHOULD get ample sunlight as the days get longer. Also the close location to the house SHOULD help keep the critters at bay.
I knew I wanted a raised garden but the next problem was determining the material to enclose it. We want an organic garden so it didn't make sense to use a material that was full of chemicals that could leach into the soil. I considered getting cedar posts until I saw the price. I looked into my spare collection in the back yard and noticed I had quite a few treated landscape timbers from a previous childs play area. After a little more research into the alkaline copper treatment and how little they leach into the soil I decided we could live with this. The landscape timbers come in 8ft lengths so it may be no surprise that I went with a design of 3 gardens that are 8ft x 8ft. Many experts suggested a garden that is only 2 ft. wide so that you can easily reach the plants from all angles but I compromised by determining I was going to plant 3 rows in each garden.
While all of Houston seems pretty flat it just so happens that the location I picked has a slight grade. Now I mention this because I read so many articles about the "easy" way to start a garden by simply laying down newspaper or cardboard, throwing in dirt and "Viola!" - you're done. Since I had to dig to get the beds level, I decided to just bite the bullet and really turn the soil. And I'm glad I
did because after scraping off the leaf and pine needle debris I found some unwanted building materials leftover from the house building. Plastic bags, copper tubing, asphalt shingles, bricks, concrete clumps, rocks, and a few pieces of rebar. The other benefit to turning the soil is that I really tore out much of the wild stuff growing there like vines and their root balls that would just keep haunting whatever I planted. Did I mention poison ivy? It took some doing but I've got two of the 3 beds in and the third is taking form.
