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toadstoolgardens · 1 year

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Gardening in Raised Beds On Pavement

Growing in raised beds on top of pavement is an excellent strategy if you have limited growing space. Let's learn how to make the most of that concrete or asphalt!

Build Tall Beds

Crops need room to send roots down into the soil. Providing plenty of room to grow means your crops have a strong foundation, hold moisture longer, and can access more nutrients in the soil through deeper roots. Raised beds on pavement should be a minimum of 24 inches tall and ideally 32 inches tall! Taller is always better, especially if you live somewhere with hot and/or dry summers.

Filling Your Raised Beds

When you build raised beds on the ground, your crops have access to the soil underneath for draining excess water from above and wicking water up from below. Building on pavement takes this away, so how we fill the beds really matters!

Bottom Layer: Gravel

Fill the bottom of your raised beds with about 6 inches of gravel. This helps fight erosion, helps with drainage, and keeps your crop's roots from coming into contact with the pavement.

Middle Layer: Decomposing Wood

I highly recommend the hugelkultur method. A hugelkultur, or "mound culture" in German, is a raised bed with a base of decomposing wood. Rotting wood encourages fungal networks, holds moisture, and fills the space pretty cheaply. Get some logs, sticks, and other dead wood pieces and make a layer on top of your gravel.

Top Layers: Loose, Rich Growing Medium

There's lots of options for filling this space, but the goal is high-quality organic matter. Avoid bags of potting soil, as these aren't living soil. Living soil self-renews and keeps providing a nutrient rich environment. Potting soil will eventually dry out and lose nutrients. Instead gather things like:

Compost (homemade or purchased)

Coffee grounds (many coffee shops are happy to give out used grounds for free)

Living soil (from your yard or garden, even just a few shovels full will likely contain fungal networks and earthworms)

Grass clippings (not sprayed with anything!!)

Kitchen scraps (egg shells, fruits, veggies)

Leaf mold (leaves that have aged for two years)

Livestock manure

Shredded office paper

Worm casings

Alternate layers of whichever of these materials you're able to get and make a big raised bed lasagna. Save your compost for the top lasagna layer. Then top the whole bed off with mulch! Mulch helps hold water and keeps weeds at bay.

The Best time to Build Raised Beds is in the Fall

You can build beds any time, but building in the fall gives your bed contents time to settle and break down over the winter. Your lasagna layers need time to break down into finished soil, which crops generally prefer. Then just add some more organic matter on top in the spring before planting.

What To Plant

Here's some crop suggestions to go easy on your garden in the first year. After the first year though the sky is the limit!

Beets

Herbs

Leafy greens

Legumes

Onions

Maintaining Raised Beds on Pavement

Irrigate: Even with your fabulous organic material lasagna, your raised bed on pavement will still dry out. Prepare to water regularly, especially in the seed and seedling phase. After your crops get established a deep weekly watering should be enough unless it's extremely hot/dry.

Fertilize: During the summer, add some liquid fertilizer every couple of weeks (during your watering sesh) to push nutrients down into the soil. Some great liquid fertilizer options are comfrey tea, fish fertilizer, and worm tea.

Soil Renewal: Every fall top your beds off with some new organic matter. Over time your raised beds will decompose and sink, so fill those babies back up so they're ready for next spring! And don't forget to mulch!

Aerate: As your layers decompose you'll want to do some gentle aerating with a digging fork to keep the soil loose and crumbly.

Use Cover Crops: Cover crops help enrich the soil and keep it from drying out.

Summer cover crops: Buckwheat, cow peas, millet

Winter cover crops: Daikon radish, oats, winter rye

Happy growing!!

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#gardening #urban gardening #small space gardening #raised beds #hugelkultur #suburban gardening #urban farming

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etakeh · 10 months

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First ripe tomato of the season

Wasp drinking out of the hummingbird feeder

Hummingbird and hummingbird feather

Sunrise.

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Someone please appreciate how hard my tiny little balcony in a city is trying to not feel like a tiny little balcony in a city.

#City life #it's a small city but it's still a city #nature #Urban wildlife #Urban gardening #small space gardening

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hookandspade · 2 years

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A slice of the cottage life in my big city garden.

Two years ago, it started with an almost bare patio and a few container plants. Now I have an obsession on a tiny patio.

#container gardening #backyard garden #urban garden #vegetable garden #edible gardening #balcony garden #apartment garden #home garden #patio garden #food gardening #veggiegarden #garden #in my garden #small space gardening #city garden

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yardenercom · 1 year

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Container Gardening: Perfect for Small Spaces

Lacking much space but wanting to add some greenery to your area? Growing plants in containers is the ideal solution! A thorough overview of container gardening is provided in our most recent blog post, along with advice on picking the best plants, soil, and container for your area. This article has everything you need to make a lovely and flourishing container garden, whether you're an experienced gardener or are just getting started. Check it out now to avoid missing out!

Visit for more at www.yardener.com

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trendytopicswordpress · 5 months

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Containers, Raised Beds, or In-Ground: Which is Right for Your Garden?

Many gardening lovers come across this problem on a daily basis, when it comes to green experiments. Some of these factors that can lead a person choose containers, raised garden beds, or in-ground include space for a garden, mobility of plants and how they wish their gardens to look like. Containers:Container gardening proves to be an efficient and space-saving option suitable for people whose…

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#Container gardening #In-ground garden layout #Organic gardening #Raised bed construction #Raised Beds #Small space gardening #Sustainable gardening #Watering strategies

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art-sciencedesigns · 7 months

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Maximizing Your Garden in a Small Space: Expert Tips & Tricks for Successful Small Space Gardening

#small space gardening #maximizing your garden #expert tips #tricks for successful gardening #gardening in a small space

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peachysoymilk · 10 months

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#balcony garden #tiny garden #small space gardening #life in Japan #cottagecore #slow life #slow living in the city #my kawaii life

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rylonsworld · 11 months

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My north facing balcony gets about one hour direct sun a day, but it’s still going

#balcony garden #urban gardening #gardening #container gardening #garden #small space gardening #smallspaces #vegetable gardening #vegetables #homegrown

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snotsloth · 1 year

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I got so much garden stuff done today! Went up to my parents' house and helped my mom build a compost bin. Then my parents came back down to mine to help me build a compost bin and assemble my new garden bed. I feel so accomplished!

#gardening #small space gardening #eat your yard #garden

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homegardeningatroof · 1 year

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blissful-areena7 · 2 years

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It's not a simple effort, but fortunately, there are dozens of little garden ideas that make it possible to grow a lot of edible herbs and vegetables in a small area. The right plants, the layout, the sun, the soil, watering methods, etc. are just a few of the variables that affect success. Additionally, you might try shade gardening and install a canopy over the shaded area of your little garden. Read More

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the-home · 4 months

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#Oxford Terrace #living room #interior design #interior #bedroom #dining room #kitchen #architecture #garden #cozy #small homes #small houses #small space #small room #small home #small spaces

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martha-anne · 2 months

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Things are starting to happen in the garden

Seedlings! Tulips! Buds bursting!

The fruit bushes I planted over winter are showing signs of life!

I planted these peas outside last week. It's too early, but they were desperate to LIVE and to CLIMB. I could not give them the life they wanted indoors. It snowed pretty much immediately, and was frosty for several days. And yet, the peas remain unbothered and flourishing.

I had a 100% germination rate with these guys too. The variety is Lord Leicester if anybody is interested.

I've stacked up a load of old twigs and prunings which were lying around to make a bit of a habitat wall area. I'm hoping this will one day give frogs a safe passage to the pond. In the shorter term, I'm wondering if any climbing plants might like to use it as a support. Does anybody have experience with this?

This is the inside of the compost bin. I just like to look at it :)

#permaculture #small space garden #urban gardening #solarpunk #peas my beloved #compost #shall i compare thee to a february pea?#no thou art nowhere near as lovely

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vintagehomecollection · 2 years

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Enclosed urban privacy. A jungle of foliage outside your garden door, as in this example, has the effect of obliterating the rest of the world. Such an outside living space of mood, atmosphere and fine detail.

The Garden Book, 1984

#vintage #vintage interior #1980s #interior design #home decor #garden #jungle #stairs #brick #cement #landscaping #wicker chair #small space #landscape design #patio

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enigmaticagentalice · 7 months

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dahlia and roses from my garden

#dahlia #flowers #my garden #this dahlia really doing numbers on my other socials so I'm posting it here too #so we can all enjoy it!#isn't it a lovely peachy colour?#I don't think I'll grow dahlias next year #as they're a little too big and unwieldy for my small garden #but I'm enjoying them for now #I love experimenting with different plants and seeing what works and what doesn't in my space #the climbing roses are a feature of the last few years #they're here to stay!#this is my favourite kind of colour on flowers #the sort of orangey pink colour family

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thestudentfarmer · 7 months

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Hello hello,

Garden update a bit today!

I tried something new in the garden that involves making a thick cornstarch slurry, coolng it complelty and mixing the seeds in.

Take the mix, put it in a piping bag and use the slurry to make even rows of seed.

I did this with carrots, radish and lettuce.

The radish and the carrots are starting to have some sprout pops! :D. (Radish above, carrot below)

The transplanted (bush variety) beans.

Mixed among them seen sprouting, is sunflowers 🌻

The sunflowers popped way sooner than I was expecting and I cannot wait to see their sunny faces :D

As well we got a lil grid set up for the suprise pumpkin plant.

Other lil doings~

I am attempting to make a jacket :)

Got most my base peices cut out (some mild trim work necessary on the cuffs and bottom stretch bit), got to get the inner liner cut out and a zipper gotten

The inner liner I'm going to try and use an old bedsheet that's a soft blue.

The girls are laying pretty good, so far we've gotten 3 flats total :D. With luck we will continue with plentiful flats (and we can started elaminating eggs purchases when I grocer shop 🥳)

And last but not least, a lil seed start update!

Eggplants, these seeds are around 9ish? Years old. I kept them in not ideal seed saving storage but they've suprised me so far with how resilient they've been. I hope we get a few good ones for seed saving.

Broccoli or cabbage (they both look the same at this stage) I'll be transplanting them soon so as to not get them too spindly.

Nasturtium. There will probably be ground planted at the same time as the broccoli.

That's it for now everyone :) I'm off to work on a breakfast cassarole before I get to work on either cutting some boards for another raised bed, working on the above pictured jacket or possibly collect up some more sweet potatoe leaves to blanch and tuck in the freezer for later.

🌻🌱 Happy Homesteading 🌱🌻

9 29 2023

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