Want an instant garden?

Last year I read about using bags of potting soil to use as garden space.  Every year I have attempted to break up a little more of our clay soil, rid it of the crab grass hard to pull weeds and add new space to the garden.  I believe the specific weed I am battling is Johnson Grass and digging it out is a painful experience.  The new area that I added last year, I simply put a row of potting soil bags right on top of my weeds and the outcome was a row of crazy growing tomatoes.

Yesterday we tackled clean up and re-planting of my potting soil row.  I took some pics to show how my weed killing efforts have been converted into a lovely new permanent plot in the garden this year.

Here is the bed last summer:

Covered with mulch, you can't even tell that it's a bunch of potting soil bags under there.  Note also that I filled the holes in the cinder blocks with soil and grew marigolds, herbs and even peppers in each hole the entire length of our mini retaining wall.

Here is what the bags looked like before I removed them yesterday:

I gently flipped the bag over and removed the plastic:

It appeared that all weeds beneath the bag were dead.  I am hoping this to be true and that I will not find Johnson Grass taking hold as the soil begins to warm.  Once I had removed the bags from the entire length of the row, the kids worked in some organic fertilizer, expanded shale, dry molasses and some rich compost:

And now I have a row planted with peas, beets, kale and mustard greens:

I did not use a high quality potting soil.  But do not use the cheapest either as that is mostly sand and I am not sure what else, but it does not resemble soil!  I did amend the soil when I planted last year.  In the near future, a thick layer of cedar mulch will go on top of the soil.

You can read more about growing in bags on the Mother Earth News website.  I will be adding more bags this year to increase my garden space and to grow my tomatoes.  My main beds need a rest from any tomato plants this year.

One note if planting directly over weeds/grass, you might consider first putting down a layer of cardboard or newspaper.  I need to figure out how I am going to go about this because I don't want the cardboard to be directly under the bag and make it difficult for roots to grow out of the bags.  However, I know from my experience last year of placing the really cheap bags at the perimeter of my garden to kill weeds in that area, that the weeds found cracks between bags or pushed their way to grow around the outside of the bag.  I found a great place in the garden to hang my camera so that I can take pictures as I work.  When I put together my new tomato bed and work in the cardboard, I will be sure to take some pictures.

 

Comments

[Madhavi Ampajwala]

This is awesome Stephanie.Great blog.
I am really interested in raised beds and planning to start 1-2 beds this year for my vegetables.I currently have my hers in pots which are doing great but tired of moving those in and out. I have had a 8x10 area which was all prepped by previous owners when we were in Concord which gave us tomoatoes,peppers, Cilantro for almost 1 winter, however the weeds were awful and my in-laws (visiting us at that time) were gracious enough to spend almost 1 hour daily. I was working 80 hr/week at that time and Naisha was just born.
Also, where do you get the malabar spinach and Purslane? These are delicious and abundant in India and love those.I do see Malabar spinach occasionally in Indian groceries but never seen Purslane.
Hope to see your raised bed post soon, keep blogging.

-take care, Madhavi.

[Carolyn Johnson]

I read about your gardening in our local newspaper in Indiana. While we have different conditions to contend with, it's all about what will grow in a person's area of the country. I had to figure that out by trial and error as many gardeners do. We have a 20ft by 45ft garden in town. It started by taking over a flower garden and grew from there. My husband had to respectfully ask me to leave him enough room in the yard to pull our truck in, to work on it :) Then we purchased the lot behind our house and I staked a claim on a large part of it for a large garden. We share our overabundance with neighbors,friends and family. All in all, our garden helps about 8 families. Not everyone speaks english, so we speak "garden." I also share seeds and look forward to walking in the area in Spring and seeing where my seeds have gone to stay. There are always plenty. I look forward to following your blog and learning from your experiences. By the way, our son (now 27 years old) also had a problem with red food dye. It was a long, but better road away from the dye.

[SaM]

Thank you for your comment Carolyn! It sounds like you have plenty to teach me. Your garden and neighborhood sounds amazing!!