6' x 6' raised bed salad garden box. (My hope)

Hi everyone from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I am a newbie when it comes to container box gardening. My hopes are to have 6 container boxes built for growing my Northern Alpine Garden veggies. Sadly however, this Summer will not see my hope fulfilled, as my dear husband is so busy with his work, we have little time left to do anything other than attend to business. Ah well, sweet thing that he is, he approached me this morning over our coffee, and wondered if it would help me to overcome my disappointment, if he created a 6' x 6' garden box, close to our home and kitchen area, which at this point in time would be easy access to water, lots of wonderful sunshine, etc. He suggested that just for this year I could develop a wonderful little garden box, to provide us with fresh organic veggies for salads.

I am very excited about the idea, and wonder if any other kind and experienced container gardeners out there, would help me by sharing some of their valuable and much appreciated expertise, in this type of gardening. Fresh salads around our house contain lettuces, various types, green onions, radishes, perhaps carrots, raw green peas, etc., etc. Is it possible to grown these types of veggies all together, do they need support from companion plants, flowers, etc. Can I do a continuous planting of new crops when and as they get eaten?

Thank you in advance. Any helpful advice with be greatly appreciated.

I so look forward to hearing from you.
warmest regards
myalpinegarden.

Sure, here are my thoughts on it, for what they are worth...

You might change that to a 4' X 8' bed so that you can reach the center more easily. otherwise, you will really be stretching!

You are pretty far north, so you might also consider that the Pacific Northwest climate people often talk about is different from your climate. Here is Wikipedia's take on your climate:

"Smithers has a borderline humid continental/subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb/Dfc).[4] Winters are cold and cloudy but highly variable with a January average of −8.9 °C (16.0 °F). Snow is the main type of precipitation during winter. Warm spells can push temperatures above freezing on 34 days from December to February while arctic air masses can drop temperatures below −30 °C (−22.0 °F) on 2 days.[5] The average annual snowfall is 204 centimetres (80.3 in) with maximum accumulations of snow happening in February when the snow depth is 36 centimetres (14.2 in) and there are 81 days were the snow depth reaches of surpasses 20 centimetres (7.9 in).[5] Summers are warm with a July high of 22 °C (71.6 °F) although nighttime temperatures are often cool. Hot and humid days are rare with only 3 days where the temperature and only 4 days where the humidex reaches or exceeds 30 °C (86.0 °F).[5] Spring and fall are short transition seasons. Smithers receives 513 millimetres (20 in) of precipitation a year with February through April being the driest months. Smithers receives 1651 hours of bright sunshine a year, ranging from a minimum of 13% of possible sunshine in December to a maximum of 48% of possible sunshine in August."

The typical climate for this forum is: its chilly at 35-50 degrees for a lot of the year, and we don't often get below 25 degrees in the winter. It rains and drizzles a lot, giving 40 inches of rain or more. Spring is a long season. What we do have in common is a cooler summer.

You need an Alaska/far north forum...and I don't see one. :(

I do know that your long summer day length means that veggies grow faster than down here during the growing season! I suspect you can grow all of the veggies on your list just fine, and where I live, they grow near each other without problem, just give each one the space it needs. The peas might flop over your other veggies and take up a lot of your space unless you grow them up a trellis. You can definitely do succession planting.

Try also the Self-contained Box Gardens Discussion Forum. They will have lots of info on your questions.

Hi mag and wishing you a great deal of success with your garden. I have tried veggie growiing just once and did pretty good. That was in the '70's. I've always wanted to do it again. Containers gardens are the way to go for just a few people.

Dear MomLady

Thanks so much for your informative reply. You are so right about our area, and that we can grow a lot of veggies successfully as a result of our wonderful long days filled with sunshine.

I am going to attempt to access the "Self-contained Box Gardens Forum. Thanks for the heads up. It is confusing at times for a newbie in both gardening and this site, but look forward to continuing communicating and learning.

Thanks again for your helpful response.

Keep us posted on your progress!

Hi Alpine! We recently bought a house and have had to dig out years of blackberry growth, so I won't be able to have a garden this year either. I'm planning to get some big wooden tubs and at least grow a variety of lettuce on my deck. Apparently where I am, on the central Oregon coast, we can grow lettuce all year.

It might be easier to take care of you bed if you put an isle down the center. If DH will set up two more walls, you could have a 12" wlakway plus two beds each 2.5 feet x 6 feet.

The soil that you scoop out of the walkway will make the two narrow beds deeper. If you dig that walkway down 6-12" below grade, you'll have even more soil to mae the beds even deeper - and now you won't need to bend down so far to weed or sow or plant.

However, if your subsoil does not drain well, beware making the below-grade path a mud-bath after heavy rains!

Hello friends

I know this is going to be a really silly question, but as I said, I am definitely a newbie, and I sincerely regret that I am so uneducated in good gardening techniques. However, I am sincere about attempting to learn as much as I can from the pros (experienced successful gardeners) as I can so that I can insure that what I do learn is in fact the correct way to grow veggies successfully, so again thanks in advance to anyone who replys. Today I am hoping to plant my beans) green, yellow and pole, and sugar snap peas, but am unsure whether or not it is beneficial to soak them prior to planting in my raised, square foot garden box. I realize this is a pretty basic question, but I sure would appreciate your advice. I have not been able to find this info on my seed pacs or other forums.

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful gardening dad's out there.

>> the correct way to grow veggies successfully

I don't think there is any one correct way to garden. Whatever works for you in your situation is correct for you! You're ound to find different people with different methods, and those different methods all work for the poeple who like them. Some of those methods might not work for everyone, buut it's usually worth trying soemthing new and different every so often, in case you find something that works even better for you than what you were doing before.


>> attempting to learn as much as I can

I think you're smart to look for suggestions, even if you get contradictory advice. trial and error is the only to find what works for your situation, but suggestions may reduce the number of errors you make while creating YOUR system.

>> beans) green, yellow and pole, and sugar snap peas, but am unsure whether or not it is beneficial to soak them prior to planting

Saoking beans and snap peas - I don't grow beans but I have grown several crops of snow peas. I lost a lot of crops trying to plant in cold wet soil. It does seem to help a lot to soak the peas first. They sprout and emerge faster, so they are less likely to rot in the gorund.

This is probably a case where not everyone has to take the extra effort of pre-soaking, but it DOES help, and in some climates and soils, it might make a big difference. Maybe "it couldn't hurt". But since you can plant beans later than peas, in warmer, better-drained soil, MAYBE they will be less likely to rot, so the pre-soak might be less important. ,

From what I read, not everyone reccomends soaking beans. So the odds are pretty good that you don't need to. If you have plenty of seeds, sow them somewhat thckly and then expect that enoguh of them will emerge to give you the spacing you want. If you only have a small amount of seed, pre-soaking sounds like a better idea.

If you like fiddling, take one variety, and soak HALF of the seeds you wnat to plant. Plant them out with soaked beans on the right, unsoaked on the right, and label them a piece of plastic like a Ventetian mini-blind slat (mark it with a pencil, or magic marker will last for a motnh or two.) If the soaking gives you better result sin your soil, your climate, and the way you water, then you discovered what's important to you.

P.S. Perhaps more imprtant than ore-soaking is keeping them uniformly moist after planting, keeping cats, birds or squirrels from digging up the seed bed, having well-drained soil with plenty of compost, a sunny spot, etc etc etc.

I don't think that all the suggestions i the world can keep anyone from making lots of mistakes and losing some crops. But also, no number of mistakes csan keep a gardener from getting some good results, and persistence always lets you triumph in the ned and create gardens you are proud of.

Usually peas do best in cool weather, so you might want to save the snap peas for a Fall crop. Beans are a good summer crop. Well, if your part of canada is as cool as the PNW, maybe a "cool-weather-crop" CAN be grown in mid-summer. You won't know until you try! But save some snap peas for planting later in the summer, for fall harvest, and see if they do better than the summer crop.

My take on soaking beans and peas: Soaking and pre-sprouting helps get rid of any duds, especially if you have old seeds (like I sometimes do). However, either method of planting can be successful. If you keep your seedbed watered consistently until the seeds emerge soaking is not necessary. Here in the Northwest, the rain generally does this just fine except for later plantings of beans. If you plan to pre-soak, but tend not to get around to it, then wait to plant because you have not yet pre-soaked, just go ahead and plant directly.

Someone who pushed the ealriest pea he could find, by plkanting it out into the coldest and wettest soil it might withstand, had a lot of rotting.

Instead he started sprouting them indoors on wetted paper towels in sandwich baggies (Deno method)
He felt it was crucial to get them of the paper towel and into the garden within 12 hours of the root emerging from the pea.

But that's a lot work if not needed. And probably for most gardens ion most climates, it's not needed.

Maybe, "if you don't yet have a reason to think it's broke,
don't spoend much effort fixding it".

Thanks so much to all who responded to my question on soaking seeds. Basically what I did was ask my dear mom who is now a retired garden angel at 89 years of age, and she said soak your peas and beans overnight. So I did, they did not sprout any roots, but they did swell up to double in size and appeared to be much softer and ready to sprout when I planted them on Monday.

I placed them into my sq.ft. garden box and as soon as they appear I will take some pictures and post them for all to see.

Have any of you developed or created smaller versions of a vertical frame that would fit into a square foot garden container, for extra support for peas, or beans or cucumbers? I purchased metal supports from Veseys and they are wonderful, however they are just too huge for my little garden box.

As I tell myself, this is all a learning curve, and continue to remain excited about it all. I live in North West BC, Canada, a few hundred miles north of Vancouver. But we are in a pretty moderate place that is known as the Bulkley Valley, and are at about 1500 ' above sea level. We also have many extra hours of daylight and sunshine than Vancouver, Oregon or Washington, so can obtain some pretty incredible crops in a much shorter growing period.

Thanks again for all of your help and advice. It is great to hear from fellow garden lovers.

Bamboo tripods, teepees or square frameowrks. Lash them together with waxed nylon twine if you have it. If you have a bar running accross the top, and naother running within a few inches of the soil, wind stirngs in a zig pattern up and down for them to climb on.

Or 'remesh" which is like rebar for concrete, but stiff wire instead of steel bars. The squares are around 6" wide, so you can reach right through to pick beans and peas.

Some say "chicken wire with stakes", but how do you pick the other side of the chciken wire?

How did we forget to say "be sure to use bean innolculent and pea innoculent! Those are rhizobial bacteira that can fix nitrogen - pull it right out of the air and feed it to the plants. You know they are present if the roots form lumpy nodules. The bacteria infect the root and grow within the nodules.

Is it too late to sprinkle innoculent above the planted peas and beans, and hope they trickle down with the waier as the seedling shoots sprout up past them?

They are different from mycorrhiza, which are benefical root fungi that penetrate the root hairs and also surround them. Even finer than root hiars, they help extract water and minerals from soil and also protect roots from disease-causing microbes.

Have you considered snap peas and snow peas? You can eat the whole pods along with the peas!


This message was edited Jun 20, 2013 7:07 PM

fish net lashed to a simple frame will work well. Tomato clips from Johnny's seed co and hanging strings will work to.

I agree no more than four feet wide. I have several they are all four feet wide. I have one that is 24 feet long and is home to ten tomato's and 10 peppers

Hello to all my garden helpers. Am very excited to tell you that as of today, about 7 days from planting, my garden box is doing wonderful. Today, I have cucumbers, 3 different bush beans, and sugar snap peas all pushing their little heads up through the soil, looking happy and healthy. Another miracle since we have had an absolutely terrible spring, too wet, too cold, and overcast. But I continue to cover my bed with garden fabric, during the evenings, which is keeping them safe from the wind and other uncharacteristic elements. My potatoes, planted into fabric potato bags, are really growing, and strong and getting ready I am sure to grow some stems and blossoms. I can't wait to be able to feed on baby, new potatoes.

So I thank you all again for your very helpful ideas and suggestions. I did take your advice and have my husband make my garden box 4 feet wide x 8 feet long, and it is just great. I can easily reach across, and walk around, and happily tend to my garden.

Hoping that all of your gardens are doing as well as mine.

Jeanette

What a magnificent raised bed! Someone is obviously a perfectionist in your family. Good luck with your crop, and please post more pictures as it develops.

That's a beautiful raised bed! I'd love to see pics as the plants develop.

That deer is probably saying "Oh boy a new cafe"
That is one of the nicest beds I have ever seen.

Initially I was thinking, "Why doesn't hubby just knock together the raised bedz she wants?"

Whoa. Now I see why.

That little bed has almost as many faucetz as my entire garden.

GORGEOUS workmanship! Especilly the hoops and irrigation tubing.

Are you going to leaves the peas there, or move them away and give them tall trellises?

Do you have every kind of irrigation spray-jet and stake that you wnat to try out? I bought too many, and they all came in packs of ten. Mione have 10/32 threads for screwing into 1/4" tubing or "Rigid Risers" that are like 1/4" tubing but a tighter fit and they stand up straight without drooping.

Maybe the hoops could be draped with anti-Bambi wire fencing. However, if you publish the photo here, your husnband won't be able to patent his method! :-)

Thanks for letting everyone know how it's going ... AND for making me so ENVIOUS! :-)

P.S. I just stocked up on lettuce, especially buttercrunch and Romaine, and could be pursuaded to share.

Wow friends

I am really impressed with all of the "Positive" responses to my garden box! It really is just a wonderful garden box. This was a tester box, and if it continues to be so great by producing some wonderful, healthy and abundant veggies it will of course be a resounding success, and next Spring of 2014, we will make an additional 6 more boxes just like it and place them into our developing permanent garden site, which we will have totally enclosed by fencing and each box will be plumbed with the same type of soaker hose grid as this box has.

My box does appear to be producing my very first crop of veggies. I have actually planted each of my 32 Sq. Ft. sections with a different veggie; ie - sugar snap peas (2), bush beans (3 different types), cucumbers (2 different types) lettuce (leaf mesclun mix), radishes, chives, dill, carrots (3 different types), summer squash, beets, parsnips, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, tomatoes (7 different types) chinese cabbage, Caraflex Cabbage, Globo Onions, and Long White Tokyo. I realize that some of these may not be good choices, however, this too is a learning curve, and at the end of the season, I will be better prepared to make better choices for next Spring.
Also have 2 potato bags planted, (1 Yukon Gold) and (1 red). They too are doing well. I will send some images of my garden to day. It was planted between the 17th of June and the 21st of June. Let me know what you think. Also have any of you grown potatoes in fabric bags. If you have, do you have any suggestions on whether or not I should start to give them some extra fertilizer.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

myalpinegarden

ps- am having trouble uploading my pics but will send them under a different message as soon as I have it figured out.

Hi again friends. Well here goes I am going to attempt to post some current pictures of myalpinegardens as of today.

Hope you get them okay.

M>A>G hi again nice looking project very neat . I am not being critical but in the end your tomato's will be much happier if they are farther apart. Also they will grow into good size plants and will grow into the plastic. Is there any way you can con dh into building a box for the tomato's so they could be planted in the center. Did you plant determinant or indeterminate tomato's?

Not sure about determinant or indeterminate tomatoes, but all the ones that I have planted are classed as "short season bush". I realize that the tomatoes are fairly close together but none are supposed to grow too much larger. I agree now that I see my garden box planted that they may have done better if I had planted them in the centre row, however I will be happy with whatever type of harvest I am lucky enough to get this year! Next year, we are planning on building a permanent garden site and it will contain 6 large boxes, and two half size boxes 4' x 4', which will have a dome shaped glass top cover, that can be raised to any height that may be required. They will be used for my tomatoes of course. For this year, I am hoping to learn which brand of tomatoes does well in the Pacific Northwest, with a short growing season, bad weather conditions which we are having this Summer, too much rain, and cloud. I feel anything that can produce a crop during these conditions, should be a major success in one of our good, long sunlight, warmer weather Summers. Wow this is definately turning into a great learning process. I really love it.
Thanks for your insight eweed. Hope you have a great garden this Summer to.

Tomatoes are definitely a challenge in the PNW. I only plant snackers (cherries and pears), and depend on my local farmers market for the bigger guys. I plant 5 varieties each year, about 1' apart in a sunny south-facing location with a rock wall behind for additional warmth. I plant indeterminates and train them up spiral supports, and that spacing works well for me. I typically have one variety that is a total bust, one that does really well, and the others are so-so. I've been keeping track over the years and hopefully will eventually have 5 winners. Definitely a learning process...

I just plantedsome tomotoes recently also in a south-facing bed with little room. They are cherry toms and some already have blooms.
Thought I had a picture but guess not, so here is one of my cat Carmel.

This message was edited Jun 28, 2013 1:27 PM

Where did you get your seeds this year? Have you found a "far north" resource?

A company to try is West Coast Seeds. They are in Vancouver, BC. I'll bet they might have some good info, too, as well as seeds trialed for short season gardens. Here's their blurb, "our focus is on the Maritime Pacific Northwest region, and we have selected seeds that will do particularly well in this climate. The seeds that we sell have been tested for growing in our local environment of south coastal British Columbia." They are a great company. I think I'll order from them next year.

Does anybody know if Territorial Seeds promotes their seeds and veggies for someone so far north? I use their seeds a lot for the short growing season in Western Washington. Their catalog is very informative, too, so it'd be great if it would apply for MAG.

MAG, how is your tomato bed going to work? What is this raiseable thing you will have to cover the bed? I am going to have to give in and do some kind of cover for my tomatoes. It drives me crazy that they often don't have time to ripen. Cherry tomatoes work fine, but for some reason, my husband doesn't like them.

I tried a grafted tomato plant this year from Territorial. It has a hardy, tough rootstock and a grafted top that makes great and supposedly prolific tomatoes. I'll let you know how that works!

In response to Momlady's query on where I got my seeds from this year, I am happy to tell everyone that it was a Canadian Seed Company called Vesey's Seeds Ltd. based out of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Everything that I received from them was first rate. All my seeds have germinated, all of their supplies, ie (tomato halo's) etc., are incredible. As was their seed "Growing Guide". I am sure that they would be more than happy to sell to U.S. customers too. Their on-line web site is "www.veseys.com." When you go on-line to their web-site they have an on-line catalogue available showing all of their products.

I had not heard of WestCoast Seeds, but will definitely go on line and see what they have to offer.

My hardiness zone is 3-4. I do not know what you are rated at, but am sure that if I can grow it in northern bc, you will also be successful.

You also wanted to know how my tomato bed planned for next year is going to work. Briefly it will be a raised garden 4'x6', as we are lucky enough to have left over from some reno work around our house two domed glass sky lights. We have 2 as in northern bc, everyone has double paned glass windows, to work as better insulators in our winter cold. My dh has already designed how he will build a glass or plexiglass base to sit around the outside edge of a garden box, (approximately 6' high), the glass domed skylight glass pieces will fit onto the plexi-glass walls surrounding the garden box. The domed lid will be able to be raised above the glass walls to let excessive heat escape, when required. In the evenings the dome will be dropped down onto the surrounding box walls, so that my tomatoes, or whatever I plant, will be protected from unwanted insects, or frost, or ?? Sounds great to me. When we build them into our permanent garden site next Spring, I will forward images for everyone to see.

Thanks again for all of your welcome advice and help.

Your raised bed looks soooooooooo good!!!! The planned tomato palace, complete with skylight, will likewise be amazing based on what we've seen of your husband's handiwork.

Yes, thank you. I am so excited about the plan, and can hardly wait until next spring to play with that.

Took a few photos this morning on my alpine garden's amazing progress, and of course introduce you to my scarecrow lady, " Marigold". I made her to keep guard on my garden box, and she is doing a grand job!

Hope all enjoy our long weekend in Canada in celebration of July 1st, and in the U.S. in celebration of July 4th.

Enjoy the sun and stay happy.

wow myalpine, your raised bed is absolutely AWESOME!

Thanks again for all the compliments friends. So exciting, since I really am such a newbie.

I was just out sharing a cup of tea with "Marigold", thinning out my square foot boxes as per Mel's advice, and low and behold there right before my eyes, I found my little bush Cherry Tomatoe has about 8 or 9 beautiful little green tomatoes hanging under one of her branches. Wow! I am so excited. Yahoo!

It appears that I need some advice from my experienced garden friends though, I noted today that there were some very miniscule, tiny red spiders running around in my veggie garden, and in some of my planted flower containers. Yikes, am I in trouble? What should I do? Help.

As far as I know, they're harmless. The only reason that you are noticing them is because they are red & stand out.

There is such a thing as red spider mites, but they are microscopic & found on the undersides of leaves, along with a dusty cobwebby feel. They are bad news but only in dry conditions, i.e., hot summer weather or heated houses.

Hello Friends

Sorry it has been a while since I posted and replied to some of your questions, but have been busy. So an update: In response to Rick about whether or not I was going to leave my peas where they were or whether I was going to move them and give them a trellis to grow up. Yes, I will leave my peas where they are 2 squares, and I found some garden trellis' at Canadian Tire, and since they are totally flexible, I placed some in the peas square and some in the beans squares. My peas are "Sugar Snap Peas" and "Oregon Sugar II" an edible pod, snow pea. They are apparently not going to climb too tall, but the garden trellis appears to be a hit, they all reached out their little vines and attached themselves happily. Now just waiting anxiously for them to bloom.

The beans also, are as follows: Early Yellow wax-treated bush bean; Lewis early green treated bush bean; and Royal Burgundy early deep purple treated bush bean;

They are all growing well in 3 separate squares. The leaves are all different sizes, some large, some small. Waiting for them to bloom now also.

I noticed after I had the problem with garden ants and spider mites in my garden box, and I sprayed them with an organic insect spray for Veggies called "Safer's End-All II" that it did in fact rid my garden box of the aphids, ants, and whatever other critters were dwelling in there. They claim that it will control all stages of aphids, spider mites, whitefly, and spittle bugs. It will also kill adult and nymph states of thrips, flea beetles, caterpillars, mealybugs, scale insects and sugar ants. Wow!
They do accept american orders, so if any of my gardening friends from across the border are interested in learning anything about this product they have a toll-free number:1-877-356-7333. Their e-mail address is: http://www.treehelp.com/safers-end-all-ii/

I did notice today though that a few of the leaves on my beans looked like they had suffered some damage from the garden pests, as they were curled, stained a light tan/brown and had some specks on their underside. I am hoping that now that the "garden bugs" are gone, they are still strong enough to continue to grow, bloom and develop into some delicious green beans. Have any of you ever had this problem with your beans? Have any ideas on what I should do if anything?

Well will post a few pics for you all who wanted me to keep showing my progress with my special little garden.

Keep smiling and stay happy.
myalpinegarden

I think that damage soundz like spider mites. Is there a cottony feel to them too?

Flea beetlez leave tiny holes.

Yes summerkid you are probably right. Oh well After yesterday I no longer have any more spider mites. Hopefully, I can keep on top of them and I will. The product says it can be used every couple of weeks. We will see I guess.

I took a few more pics of my garden box today and will up load them here. I am so excited about all the wonderful little tomatoes. Yeah.

Thanks again for your advice
mag

Looking good, mag, no doubt about it! And bean plantz are strong growers; they will recover.

Oh thank you for the good news. I will keep you informed of what happens in the next week.

Thanks a bunch.

mag