making gardenThis text was co-authored by Grow It Organically Steve Masley and Pat Browne have been designing and maintaining natural vegetable gardens in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years. When you’ve got grass growing in your new garden spot, dig it up with a spade or sod cutter. Bone meal, blood meal, and other fertilizers help your plants develop healthy, and a layer of topsoil is useful to have in case you’re planting something that needs extra protection.

The first solution to maximize area within the garden is to convert from conventional row planting to three- or 4-foot-wide raised beds. Including a frog house to your garden is among the easiest ways to draw insect-eating frogs and toads to your garden space, where they’ll gorge on mosquitoes, biting flies, and plant predators.

On the very least, your crops will require 1 inch of water every week. At the very least, test your soil’s pH It will let you know how acid or alkaline your soil is. Crops can’t take up vitamins unless the soil’s pH is within a suitable vary. Crop rotation throughout the vegetable garden means planting the same crop in the same place only once each three years.

Mosses assist block different plants, and add a small “grass” that may be very manageable and appealing. Think about top: Place taller plants towards the back of your borders, with decrease-growing species on the edges of paths or lawn. Earlier than you identify the bed, break up and loosen the soil beneath with a garden fork so that it is not compacted.