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Littlegardenbug
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 12:52 pm EST : |   
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Well, I haven't got a picture right at this moment (maybe tonight?) but the issue to discuss here is the front yard.
BACKGROUND: We have a double wide driveway on the north side of the house that is commonly used for hockey. The north side of the house also happens to be the only place I could have a veggie patch because of the amount of sunlight. DH originally said 'NO' because he doesn't want the house to look like an Italian grandmother lives there (his words not mine). On the other hand, I WANT A VEGGIE GARDEN!
I suggested that a combination veggie and flower garden would likely work for both of us.
He suggested maybe putting in a raised bed, but I've never seen a raised bed that I like, particularly one that is made of wood and cheaply. I'm liking the idea of a raised bed, though, because it would help keep the hockey players out of the garden. Maybe even a bench area? But then it wouldn't be balanced with the other side of the driveway.... (I need to get a picture up!)
Does anyone have any pictures of attractive raised beds, or a different idea that may work?
Littlegardenbug
- Alberta,
Zone "3a"
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Stephie
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 01:11 pm EST : |
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Would you consider container gardening? There are lots of veggies quite suitable for them, many containers can be placed attractively and in "layers" (putting on top of blocks etc) and no weeding!!! Can be moved around too. Interspersed with flowers also in containers????
Stephie |
Heirloomgardens
 Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Garden
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 01:59 pm EST : |
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They're not mine and I have no idea where I found them, but maybe these pics will give you some ideas.
I think this one nicely shows that veggies and flowers can be quite pretty together.
I think this is a very orderly (i.e. tidy) way to fill a bed. I don't think that they are wooden, but the edges of the bed are far more creative than most, as is the way they are fit together. I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to come up with something similar in wood.
This one is just a good example of what a mostly veggie raised garden could look like.
Heirloomgardens
- Massachusetts,
Zone "5b"
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Oldiebutgoodie
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 02:26 pm EST : |
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Although I have a huge vegetable garden, I plant rainbow chard in my flower beds. I love its glossy leaves and rainbow coloured stems and it's handy to cut some for dinner while I'm weeding. I also put flowering kale in my flower beds and enjoy the late season colour till the first hard freeze-up when I cut it and cook it immediately. Similarly, Royal Burgundy beans look nice in some of my containers, along with ivies and flowers.
I like the appearance of most veggies, but I plant a long row of calla lilies and a long row of gladioli in front of that along the front edge of my veggie garden. When that garden starts to get ratty looking during late summer and early fall, it's screened by the lilies and glads along the front and by asparagus ferns along one side.
Oldiebutgoodie
- Ontario,
Zone "5"
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Gardenbug
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 02:38 pm EST : |
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Here's some stuff to look at:
http://www.jeffnet.org/~hgpf/howto.htm
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
http://www.ahta.org/AHTA%20Raised%20Bed.pdf
http://www.ca.uky.edu/enri/gardening/smspacegardening.pdf
http://www.raisedbedgardeningtips.com/tipsbuilding.htm
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Gardenbug
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Friday, May 02, 2008 - 02:58 pm EST : |
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And these!
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/potager/msg04194237383.html?4
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/potager/msg0423595821696.html?24
Gardenbug
- Ontario,
Zone "4/5"
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Seil
Supporting Member
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2008 - 08:00 pm EST : |
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Hi Sarah, lots of good suggestions here but I thought I'd share some pics of how we made our raised beds. I was not fond of the look of wooden raised beds either. I also don't like the rough finish on those stacking garden blocks you see all over. I like to get down and dirty with my garden so I'm always crawling around on my hands and knees doing things in there and that rough concrete hurts! So I wanted a smooth finish on the stones. We found the scalloped ones which would work fine for the lower level but I wanted a higher bed for the roses so we got creative. We stood 24" square patio blocks up on edge for the back wall of the high bed. They're sunk partially into the ground and then there is rebar sunk even deeper and construction adhesived to the backs of the blocks. It looks nice and clean and smooth, just the way I wanted. It's been through 5 winters now and none of the standing stones has budged. In fact there's only one stone that's started to loosen just this spring and it's one of the short scallops on the low level (probably because it's the one I step on sometimes climbing up and down).
This is the back wall. It's made from the same stones as the big ones on the walkway.
This shows the two tiers.
And this is the front of the whole bed.
Now about those veggies! I inter plant my veggies with my flowers all the time. It's not unusual for me to have tomatoes, peppers or cukes right next to zinnia, delphiniums, irises or what ever. It doesn't seem to bother them and the veggie plants do flower and the foliage just adds more interest to the whole look. I say go for it!
Seil
- Michigan,
Zone "6"
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Karma
Supporting Member
My Garden
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 08:18 am EST : |
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Nice job Seil, so tidy! You mean these can be mixed?
Karma
- PNW,
Zone "Z-Denial "
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Seil
Supporting Member
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 03:56 pm EST : |
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Thanks, Karma. All of the credit goes to my dear brother Alan. He built that whole bed from scratch plus all the walk and edging around the other 3 beds. It took him about a months to do and he was a perfectionist. Everything lines up and matches perfectly. I, however, am the one that filled it with all the dirt! We had a load dumped on the lawn in front of it and wheel barrow by wheel barrow I filled the first layer of the bed then he leveled it and built the second tier and slowly but surely I filled that one too. It's so nice to have good soil to dig in instead of just lake bottom clay.
Yep, that's what I mean, plant those vegetables right in with the flowers. It makes for a nice full bed and they all seem to thrive together.
Seil
- Michigan,
Zone "6"
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Flowerfreak
Supporting Member
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 08:14 pm EST : |
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Good pics Seil
Reading this thread has made me feel much better about planting my veggies in part of my existing landscape of flowers...now if I can just find a way to keep critters from getting the veggies 
Flowerfreak
- Ky,
Zone "6a"
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Littlegardenbug
| | Posted on Sunday, May 04, 2008 - 08:24 pm EST : |
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I finally got a picture of the front yard. Let's see if I can load it...
Our property goes about 6-7' to the right of the driveway, and 20' to the left. The photo is taken looking south. The area that is the brightest and do best as a veggie garden would be to the right of the driveway - but then it would look unbalanced so something would have to be done to the left I suppose...
Thank you for all your great ideas. It seems that suddenly we have a huge amount of slate that is available so I think we might try something like Seil's using slate as borders.
Seil - how did you manage to keep your cricks vertical? Are they buried? Do you have a liner on the inside? How much soil leaks out when there's a heavy rain?
As for interspersing veggies in the garden, that is going to be a go. And we just got materials to make a couple veggie planters on the back deck (hottest place in the neighbourhood I think).
Heirloomgardens - that first photo of the veggie/flower garden is amazing! I wonder if I'm capable of doing something like that on low budget!
Gardenbug - thanks for the suggestions. I think that because we have the slate (from the fountain) we might make a path in the front if we have any slate left after making the sides of a raised bed - if we get to that. Now I just have to convince DH!
Littlegardenbug
- Alberta,
Zone "3a"
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Heirloomgardens
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 05:59 am EST : |
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I think that if you grow your veggies and annual flowers from seed, but buy bulbs/tubers like Dahlias, Cannas, or whatever you like, you could probably make a pretty nice garden on a budget, especially if you are trying to fill a big garden. If it's going to be a small garden, buying everything in 6-packs might not be very expensive, either. (You probably already know this since you've been here a while, but FYI... As far as bulbs go, keep an eye out for sales at this time of year. As the season progresses, the prices get lower and lower for things that are shipped to plant this spring. Also, see if you have anything to trade with other GB's to get what you want.)
Heirloomgardens
- Massachusetts,
Zone "5b"
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Oldiebutgoodie
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 06:16 am EST : |
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Do you have a Horticultural Society close by, Sarah? Most have spring plant sales that are an excellent and inexpensive way to acquire perennials. I see in your profile that you're fond of irises. They're easy to grow and seem to multiply exponentially for me - a good way to fill up your beds in a hurry. As you acquire other plants, you can tear out your irises and share them with others.
Oldiebutgoodie
- Ontario,
Zone "5"
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Oldiebutgoodie
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 06:20 am EST : |
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If you have a Horticultural Society close by, Sarah, check to see if it has a spring plant sale. Many do. Plants are donated by the members and can be acquired inexpensively.
I see that you're fond of irises. They're easy to grow and mine seem to multiply exponentially - an easy way to fill up a garden. As you acquire other plants, you can tear out some of your irises and share them with others.
Oldiebutgoodie
- Ontario,
Zone "5"
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Seil
Supporting Member
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, May 05, 2008 - 08:45 pm EST : |
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Sarah, there is construction adhesive between each stone so there is absolutely no soil leakage. In fact it's even water tight! He filled the first tier with water to check before he'd let me start putting in the soil. Otherwise we would have had a muddy mess all over the walk in front of our front porch. Not very welcoming for guests! The big 24 inch blocks are sunk in the ground about 6 inches so the top bed is about 18 inches high and the lower scalloped blocks just sit on top of the ground and are rebared and glued so that tier is about 8 inches high. There is also a course of flat bricks around the outer edge of the lower tier that help stabilize the blocks and provides an edge he can mow along easily. I wanted as much depth as possible so I wouldn't let him sink them they way they suggest which is 4 inches in and 4 inches out of the ground. What good is 4 inches when you can have 8 inches of nice garden soil to plant in? All of the materials for this project are readily available too. We got the blocks at Kmart and the rest of the construction rebar and adhesive at Home Depot.
I think raised beds flanking the drive would be lovely.
Thanks, Lisa.
Seil
- Michigan,
Zone "6"
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Heirloomgardens
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Garden
| | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 07:26 am EST : |
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Here's another pic I just came across. It isn't a raised bed, but I think that people wouldn't even notice the edges of a raised bed once it filled out like this. It's a fruit, veg, and flower garden.
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Gardening/Kitchen-Garden/Vegetables/S owing-and-Planting/Combination-Plantings/Combination-Plantings-6.html
Heirloomgardens
- Massachusetts,
Zone "5b"
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Littlegardenbug
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 04:22 pm EST : |
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WOW - DH decided that redoing the front was out - after I told him that a truckload of dirt was about $160... Si I planned to dig up some stuff at a much smaller scale, and move a bunch of red rocks. I've been slowly getting myself together to do that. I put a slate path down in the front on top of the grass just to get an idea of how it would look.
Yesterday I got a book (http://www.amazon.ca/Book-Garden-Designs-Sunset-Books/dp/0376031891/ref=pd_ bowtega_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210710366&sr=1-1) and now DH is just as excited as me, if not moreso about doing the front yard! YAY!!!!
Today he has done a whole bunch on the back - bought a small mugo, a saskatoon, and mock-orange - and dug holes for all of them! Maybe they'll be planted tonight?
I can continue on last year's backyard thread as soon as I get pictures.
Littlegardenbug
- Alberta,
Zone "3a"
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