Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show/podcast: Creating a new garden bed
At my former home I started a garden plot for cut flowers. I left an old carpet and tarps over the soil from Spring to Fall to kill the existing weeds. I do not have photos of them, they’ve been lost through the many iterations of my life! You can use cardboard too.
Tip: the best way to use old carpet for weed killing is to put it down on the area you want for a plant-bed and leave it all winter.
In Fall it was time to blend in some organic matter. I used fallen leaves which are usually abundant at this time of year and certainly cheap. I like to run the lawn mower through a pile a couple of times to chop them up and then mix ‘em into garden.
You can add:
- Dried pine needles
- Home compost contents, just check to see how decomposed it is, if you’ve got black dirt, you’ve got gold, fork that into any of your garden areas and let it nestle in for the winter. If it’s not decomposed completely, that’s okay, it‘ll break down even further over the fall and winter months. But leave out the big chunks, like thick tomato stems or chunks of zucchini!
- Fold in your grass clippings too, unless you’ve used chemicals.
- You can also buy composted manure. Never use fresh manure.
Adding these organic materials will add some minor nutrients but, more importantly, will fluff up your soil, improving the texture and drainage capabilities.
And, last but not least, fork all or some of those ingredients into the top 6 to 9 inches of soil, however, leaving it on top is okay too. Now you can spend the winter months with a cup of hot cocoa, surrounded by garden catalogs and planning what you’ll put into your amazing new garden. As I said, I made a cut flower garden but this method works for any type of garden you choose.
Some flowers that work well for a cut garden:
- Shasta Daisies
- Larkspur
- Globe flowers
- Lady’s Mantle
- Baby’s breath
- Sea Holly
- Liatris