Planning our first vegetable garden

15 years ago

Last fall I made some raised beds and filled them with lasagna-style compost and covered them with mulch. We just went on-line last night and ordered our seeds. Here's what we're planning:

Tomatoes, peppers, snap peas, snow peas, carrots, radishes, mesclun, mixed greens, chard, broccoli rabe, pumpkins, melons, strawberries and grapes. Strawberries and grapes will be plants, all the rest seed.--will start seeds soon. I mean, most of them will be plants by the time I put them in, but strawberries and grapes I will buy as plants. Greens, peas etc. I will plant from seed. (Meant to winter sow, but procrastinated/chickened out.) Also some herbs in whiskey barrels on the front patio.

Plan to put in watering system soon.

Hope to avoid both digging and much weeding by using lasagna beds and heavy mulch.

One concern I have is whether the pumpkins and melons will be far enough apart, in separate raised beds around 20' apart.

Any advice or thoughts are welcome. We live in Denver. Thanks.

Any advice is

Comments (2)

Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
15 years ago
Here in eastern Aurora we don't get many weeds. We put the melons and punkins and zucc in a 100sf raised bed and by Sept it was a tangle of stuff. So this year I'm trellising the melons ('Minnesota Midget' and can't remember cantaloupe var. at the moment).

As you haven't said how large the beds are, it is difficult to tell whether they will be able to contain the vines, esp of the punkin, but 20' separation likely will be enough. One idea to keep melons in control is a knee-hi trellis, available many places like Nick's, Tagawa, maybe even HD/Lowes/bigbox.

Have fun!

Dan
singcharlene
15 years ago
Hi Autodidact,

I have done much of my vegetable garden in lasagna beds and I have been very happy with the results. I also mulch heavily and have had very few weeds.

I grew pumpkins in two raised beds that were 5'x5' spaced four feet apart. I also had green beans and flowers growing up bamboo trellises in the center. I just trained the pumpkin vines to grow over the sides of the beds and they sprawled all around them. Once the vines set fruit and I saw pumpkins beginning to form I pruned them a bit to keep in check. I watered with soaker hose.

Have fun!

Charlene