Good morning guys! How’s everybody doin today? Deb and I are both great, and feelin…good! We hope you guys are too!
Well…the beds are in the greenhouse! At least I believe they are. As of now this is what we’ve decided on, BUT, you know me…this could change at any minute! For example…
We started out going to have 4 beds…there are now 3?? We were going to have 4 three foot bed widths, with two of them 50 feet long, and two 40 feet long. Not anymore! LOL!
We ended up having one three foot bed width, 50 feet long, one 5 foot width, 44 feet long, and one 4 foot bed width, 30 feet long. What made me change things around? I don’t know, just seemed like the thing to do? PLUS, it just aggravated ole Deb to no end! I love it!! LOL!
No, after getting in the greenhouse, and laying it out, it just made better sense to me, I know, I know, sense not being one of my stronger points… “GOOD sense, anyway!” So, we just fa-naggled things some. Is fanaggled even a word? If not…it is now!
Once I saw the 3 foot width of our first bed I got to thinkin, instead of havin 4 of these, why don’t we make just three beds, with the middle bein 5 foot wide, and the last bein 4 foot wide. You want to know my reasoning? You sure?
Okay then, by havin the middle bed 5 foot wide, we’ll have more room for the vegetables to grow off. Tomatoes come to mind as they are a larger plant. Although this is a wider bed, we do have a walkway on both sides of this particular row.
This bein the case, the walk on both sides allows us to set plants, work the soil, and harvest the veggies… from both sides. Ease of work, and we can reach the area from either side…only a 2-1/2 foot reach either way. So, to me, this made perfectly good sense. The “key words” here…to me. LOL!
But, this middle bed is where we’ll grow most of our tomatoes.
Now, the first bed we put in, the 3’x50’ is going to be used for mostly juice materials for us. Oh sure, we’ll eat them as well, but this will be insurin Deb plenty of juice vegetables. At this point in our lives, this is a priority.
We’ll be growin them ourselves, we’ll KNOW what has been put on them, they’ll be able to ripen on the vine to insure the good taste, and not harvested early to be shipped cross-country. It’ll be much more economical for us versus buying from the store, AND they’ll ALL be FRESH, right from the plant directly into our home!
We’ll still utilize our outdoor garden of course, but the greenhouse will allow us to grow more variety year round. This is JUST what the Doctor ordered…Dr. Deb! As usual, I’m stuck playin…second fiddle!
We also intended upon taking the existing soil down to a depth of 12 inches, then using 2×10’s as our containing wall, then filling this up with another 9-1/2 to 10 inches of good soil. This bein an average “good soil” depth of between 20 to 22 inches, but also utilizing some of the existing soil (maybe a third), along with the garden soil we’d be purchasing. WRONG!
Once more, if I decided to put in a fish farm…they drown! I don’t know what it is with me AND, my projects?? Somehow, someway, they just seem to…go over budget?? Sounds like the government, huh? Oh, BUT there is one BIG difference…it’s my dern money I’m spendin, NOT somebody else’s!!
Well, after digging the trench, removing the existin soil from the 3×50, takin a good look at the existing soil, which had a lot of rocks, blocks, and even glass, I decided to NOT use it. It made a great pad, but for gardening…it was the pits!
Live and learn, that’s my motto. Accordin to Deb though, in regards to my projects, she claims I’m doin an AWFUL lot of livin, but very little LEARNIN! To which I reply, “You know, you just might be on to something here, DEAR…how long we been married now??”
Once I say this I’ve learned to…DUCK!
Regardless of my not bein too bright in my “planning stages” of a project, it still is what it is. Cain’t stop now. So, once I realized I couldn’t, nor shouldn’t utilize ANY of the existing soil, I got to makin some changes pretty rapidly.
First off, bed number 2 and 3 immediately were excavated to a depth of 8 inches…not 12. Then, the use of 2×10’s became very quickly…2×6’s! LOL! If, I’d of continued with my original plan, we were “poor house” bound, NOW! So, being the “flexible guy” I am, we changed it around, but still used about 500 bags of material!
One reason for so many bags was we’d bought them out of the 2 cubic feet bags, and had to end up using 1 cubic foot bags. We mixed Miracle Grow Garden Soil along with Black Cow, I’m guessing about a 3 to 1 ratio.
We bought them out of the Miracle Grow Garden Soil, so in our last bed, we had to use Jungle Growth with the Black Cow. Honestly though, the store we bought the soil from did work with us pretty well, and worked with us on the price, which we appreciated very much.
I’ve got a video we’ll share with you guys today, that talks about the Jungle Growth Soil some. On the back of their bags is a picture of gorillas, and the need to save them. During the video I tell, and show this, but also add that if you guys buy any of the Jungle Growth for yourselves, you actually WON’T be savin the go-rillers…cause I already did!! LOL!
The last bed we built is a 4 footer in width, and this too allows a little more grow room for the plants, plus will still allow us to work the bed easily. This project is still learnin as we go, and I’m sure we’ll continue to tweak it from time to time. But eventually we’ll end up with a very nice greenhouse set up, that will wind up bein just what we anticipated it to be!
The 4 foot bed width as I mentioned earlier is only 30 feet long. This can allow us to grow some vegetables in front of this bed using bags or containers…just a thought we had. Also, we have to consider a few tables or benches to grow our seedlings off, storage, ect….
Once more, we’re still makin decisions on how best to do this, with the space available to us. Deb considers this on my part to be…dangerous! There she goes again! LOL!
Anyway, here’s the video… “We HAVE…Saved the Go-rillers!”
Well, this will bout wind us down for today, and we thank ya’ll for visitin with us once again! You guys are great! God Bless you and yours, and as Deb says, “Keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!”
Dub and Deb
Ola! Admin,
Along the same lines,, I”m growing patio tomatoes in a raised bed greenhouse in Northern California. The plants look great…nice and big and green with lots of blossoms……….but not very many tomatoes?? Why is that? Is it getting too hot? Or do I need to let the bird and the bee’s get to them? I did spray them for several weeks with tomatoe set. Thanks
Catch you again soon!
Northern Calif…I’d be guessin, but here’s a couple attempts to look at. First if your temps at night drop below the mid-50′s, that might cause some bloom drop?? Too much fertilizer, or even your soil being to dry might be problems too. My Grandfather always would plant by the moon. Swore that if you didn’t use the moon, peas as an example, they make big beautiful bushes…but set very few peas?? That’s what he said…Deb’s brother-in-law swears by the same thing. When we set out in our outdoor garden, we use moon favorable dates too, especially peas. Our crops have been heavy-bearing. BUT, I’ve never tried peas any other way. Our greenhouse, we’re not sure yet. Just zero to hardly any experience with a grow house at this point.
Down here when the weather is really starting to get hot, July and August, our plants don’t do well. The sun literally scalds them…at our place anyway.
You guys take care!