Small Space Gardening

I have not always been interested in small space gardening. I mean, why would I need to be? I live on a farm after all. Well, the local deer population forced me to try it when they either ate or stomped my garden, particularly my tomato plants year after year.

I really wasn't very good at it at first and I have decided to share my experiences so others don't have to make my mistakes. I have done things that have worked and things that have been disasters. I started slowly, but now I really love it. My raised bed garden is really becoming my little gardening retreat.

The first thing I tried was small raised beds placed near or within my large garden space. Doing raised beds can be expensive and I tried to do my first ones on the cheap. It was one of those disasters. My first ones were too short. If you don't mind bending way down to weed, etc that could be ok, but it didn't work for me. The big problem though was how I tried to protect them from the deer and other critters that wander the area. I thought I could just put frames over the individual beds and use deer or bird netting over them. The frames were about 3 to 4 feet high that held up the netting. The first problem was that it was hard to move the netting out of the way to work in the garden which could have been fixed by changing the design, but there was no point since the deer just walked over the nets and completely stomped my garden anyway. So much for that idea!

After that I decided to explore my yard to find places to plant vegetables, fruits, and herbs that the deer would be less likely to destroy. I had a large of yard area with lots of high maintenance flowering plants like roses and rhododendrons. I converted a small area into a structured herb garden and left some space for vegetables. After that I was really hooked on edible landscape. It was so much fun to go out and harvest fresh vegetables and herbs for dinner. And the deer were a little more nervous about getting that close to my house so they would only top my plants and I would still get plenty of tomatoes to eat.

We took out most of the roses and planted a long row of blueberries, nine large plants that came out of field we were removing. Those nine plants provide us with so many blueberries that we often have a few to sell at the market late in the season after the commercial growers are finished! They are the varieties "Duke" and "Darrow". We will have those varieties available for sale at the markets this year in 2 gal pots.

About 3 or 4 years ago I convinced my husband that we needed to try the raised beds again so I could have test gardens for the many vegetable starts that we grow. This time we made them about 2 feet tall, put poultry wire under them to keep the gophers and moles out, got a load of topsoil so we didn't have to fill them with our heavy clay soil, and put a fence around them. That fence was the biggest issue. We used large garden stakes that first year ( those 1 in. plastic poles with a little metal inside) and used bird netting for the fence.

My dog loves tomatoes and can actually be as hard on them as the deer. The first year she crawled under the netting to get at them. That left a space under the fence that the deer just couldn't resist. It looked like a buck put his head under the netting to browse on the tomato plants then got his antlers tangled in the netting and tore it while bending the poles. We did get some tomatoes, but several plants were pretty much destroyed.

Last year we switched to regular metal fence posts, but my dog continued to crawl under the netting even though I put metal stakes in to hold it down. She really loves tomatoes! I fooled her this year. We invested in poultry wire and I feel like we now have a dog, deer, gopher, bunny, cat proof garden area. That is if my grandchildren remember to close the door!

We have already planted radishes and carrot seed and onion plants. Peas came up as volunteers before all that cold weather and they survived almost 3 feet of snow. They're starting to grow and Molly and I are starting to look forward to fresh peas.
Annika and I planted parsley plants yesterday too so at least one of the beds is coming together.

I will update on the progress in those beds, but now it's time for you to get to work and prepare for the upcoming season. We will have lots of plants at the Hillsboro, Orenco, Sherwood, Tigard and OHSU markets for you to put in your own garden. It is also time to plant early season root crops like radishes, carrots, and beets. Those need to be direct seeded.

I hope this will be helpful to you in creating your own garden spot. If you have questions you can email us at mtherbal@aol.com and we will try to help. We can also take orders for plants or let you know about availability of specific varieties. Please see our plant lists on our website mountainsideherbalnursery.com .

Have fun and GROW WHAT YOU EAT!

I have not always been interested in small space gardening. I mean, why would I need to be? I live on a farm after all. Well, the local deer population forced me to try it when they either ate or stomped my garden, particularly my tomato plants year after year.

I really wasn't very good at it at first and I have decided to share my experiences so others don't have to make my mistakes. I have done things that have worked and things that have been disasters. I started slowly, but now I really love it. My raised bed garden is really becoming my little gardening retreat.

The first thing I tried was small raised beds placed near or within my large garden space. Doing raised beds can be expensive and I tried to do my first ones on the cheap. It was one of those disasters. My first ones were too short. If you don't mind bending way down to weed, etc that could be ok, but it didn't work for me. The big problem though was how I tried to protect them from the deer and other critters that wander the area. I thought I could just put frames over the individual beds and use deer or bird netting over them. The frames were about 3 to 4 feet high that held up the netting. The first problem was that it was hard to move the netting out of the way to work in the garden which could have been fixed by changing the design, but there was no point since the deer just walked over the nets and completely stomped my garden anyway. So much for that idea!

After that I decided to explore my yard to find places to plant vegetables, fruits, and herbs that the deer would be less likely to destroy. I had a large of yard area with lots of high maintenance flowering plants like roses and rhododendrons. I converted a small area into a structured herb garden and left some space for vegetables. After that I was really hooked on edible landscape. It was so much fun to go out and harvest fresh vegetables and herbs for dinner. And the deer were a little more nervous about getting that close to my house so they would only top my plants and I would still get plenty of tomatoes to eat.

We took out most of the roses and planted a long row of blueberries, nine large plants that came out of field we were removing. Those nine plants provide us with so many blueberries that we often have a few to sell at the market late in the season after the commercial growers are finished! They are the varieties "Duke" and "Darrow". We will have those varieties available for sale at the markets this year in 2 gal pots.

About 3 or 4 years ago I convinced my husband that we needed to try the raised beds again so I could have test gardens for the many vegetable starts that we grow. This time we made them about 2 feet tall, put poultry wire under them to keep the gophers and moles out, got a load of topsoil so we didn't have to fill them with our heavy clay soil, and put a fence around them. That fence was the biggest issue. We used large garden stakes that first year ( those 1 in. plastic poles with a little metal inside) and used bird netting for the fence.

My dog loves tomatoes and can actually be as hard on them as the deer. The first year she crawled under the netting to get at them. That left a space under the fence that the deer just couldn't resist. It looked like a buck put his head under the netting to browse on the tomato plants then got his antlers tangled in the netting and tore it while bending the poles. We did get some tomatoes, but several plants were pretty much destroyed.

Last year we switched to regular metal fence posts, but my dog continued to crawl under the netting even though I put metal stakes in to hold it down. She really loves tomatoes! I fooled her this year. We invested in poultry wire and I feel like we now have a dog, deer, gopher, bunny, cat proof garden area. That is if my grandchildren remember to close the door!

We have already planted radishes and carrot seed and onion plants. Peas came up as volunteers before all that cold weather and they survived almost 3 feet of snow. They're starting to grow and Molly and I are starting to look forward to fresh peas.
Annika and I planted parsley plants yesterday too so at least one of the beds is coming together.

I will update on the progress in those beds, but now it's time for you to get to work and prepare for the upcoming season. We will have lots of plants at the Hillsboro, Orenco, Sherwood, Tigard and OHSU markets for you to put in your own garden. It is also time to plant early season root crops like radishes, carrots, and beets. Those need to be direct seeded.

I hope this will be helpful to you in creating your own garden spot. If you have questions you can email us at mtherbal@aol.com and we will try to help. We can also take orders for plants or let you know about availability of specific varieties. Please see our plant lists on our website mountainsideherbalnursery.com .

Have fun and GROW WHAT YOU EAT!