DeeDoo’s Digital Scrapbooking Blog

There is abundant EXPERT advice on how to garden readily available online–everything from soil testing and preparation through when to harvest and prepare for the next season.

I am NOT and expert gardener by any means!! But I have learned a few very important lessons over the years, having tried different approaches to many gardening tasks.

#1 thing I have learned: It’s a good thing to just bite the bullet and build raised garden beds for your plants. Why? This is the #1 best way to control the type of soil and drainage of your garden. These two factors are of primary importance to the success of your garden, and are the first things that should be done. There are many tutorials and articles on how to build your raised beds—just Google it and choose the one that appeals to you and your time and cash budgets!

#2 thing I have learned: Heavily covering your empty garden beds with old newspapers, topped with cardboard and a heavy weight is a superior way to kill off any grass and weeds that sprout between fall harvest and spring planting. It does not contaminate the soil with insecticides, and it is very effective if allowed to remain completely covered for several weeks prior to preparing the soil for spring planting.

This is one of our beds, naked and barren of any delicious garden plants. However, you can see the little green weeds easily taking hold in the unprotected soil.

Here I had begun to lay out the papers, but had not removed the tomato cages, etc. Oops! Makes it a lot easier to build an effective covering if the surface is flat and empty of all cages and supports!!

This final photo shows flattened cardboard boxes, which are now covering the newspapers, weighted down with LOTS of old bricks. The newspapers alone would have done the trick, however, they are difficult to keep in place and are easily torn by our dogs running through the beds. The black plastic you can buy in rolls would work as a cover, but it doesn’t weather as well as the cardboard.

We’ll be removing the papers and cardboard in a few weeks when we are ready to start planting. I can hardly wait!!