How To Grow Simple…
Have you always wanted to grow your own food? If you are one of those that think gardening has to be back breaking work – think again!
Below is our four-part series on how to plant a simple garden using raised row beds.
Our raised row, no till and low maintenance beds provide us with thousands of pounds of vegetables each year, and keep us in fresh and canned food year round. Through each of the four parts – we take you through the process of how we plan, plant, care and maintain our raised row garden beds – and how to create your own simple garden in your yard.
OUR FOUR PART SERIES – GROWING SIMPLE:
Just click on the steps below to view each of the four part series.
1. Growing Simple With Raised Rows, No-Till Beds
2. Preparing And Planting The Raised Row Garden
3. Maintaining The Garden Through The Season
4. Keeping Your Beds Productive
The pictures below are all from our garden the last two years. It measures just 40 x 60′. but yields over 3000 pounds of vegetables a year for us. In general, we spend less than 10 minutes a day working in it through the spring and summer months.
How do you start the next season? Let’s say I use this method this year, plant the cover crop in the winter and then get ready for next year. Am I only mixing the winter crop and soil on top of the straw, or do you mix all of it back into the normal soil and start fresh again by adding more straw and soil?
So glad I found your blog several months ago – I’ve enjoyed reading all your posts and especially this one. Around my house I have several types of garden beds already in place and being in southwest Florida where our normal soil is not fit for use, raised beds with 100% amended soil are the only way to go. This blog series gives yet another approach to problem many of us have and you’ve found an affordable way to do it, too. I’ll be trying your method in the next extension of my garden. Thanks!
Our church has a 60′ x 60′ lot that we have been doing container gardening. We just don’t get enough produce with that method. I want to incorporate your raised row method. Will this be feasible in the Texas Panhandle? I figure it will this year because of “El Niño”. I would like to get your thoughts. Thanks, Robbie
Hi Robbie – We do get more produce from our raised rows rather than using a closed method container garden. As for the weather in the panhandle – it’s hard to say, but you could always shade or water parts when needed. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
We are moving from the CITY to the country. I will be able to get my green thumb fired up once again.
Thank you for this very valuable information! I have been driving myself crazy trying to figure out a way to create a beautiful low maintaince garden but have been scared off by all the equipment needed to get started, I’m off to get some back tarp today to get started, hopefully it’s enough time as is is still pretty cold here. We will see if not it’s a good start to next years success!
Hello, I just made my 10×15 foot garden using just straw and black plastic over it to start it composting. I can’t find that article, could you please e-mail it to me? We live in an area where I am reclaiming forest land and it really is nothing but roots and rocks…this garden is the perfect solution. Thank you so much! Cindy
Hi. We don’t have easy access to wheat straw in SE Texas (Houston). Will pine straw work?
Ron. ronlohr@aol.com
Hello Jim-Mary’ Have you ever tried to grow potatoes and onions side by side?, the potatoes bugs don’t like onions and the potatoes provide shade for the onions! give it a try! Don
Hey Jim and Mary, I was inspired by your raised row method and did it in combination with hugelkultur and lasagne method. Check it out.
http://www.hobbyfarmliving.com/mixed-method-gardening/
I gave you a link back to this page. 🙂
I’ve completed my first season as a raised row gardener.Started modestly with 4-12′ x 18″ rows, with good success. Now that the season is done, what should I do with the beds next year? add more mulched leaves, top soil,straw? or just leave them alone?
I have been meaning to update you on my raised bed garden here in Texas. While the garden has grown splendidly, I had to clean out the row spaces between due to snakes. It seems they also enjoyed the bed of soft, lush, leaves & hay. We are finally reaping the rewards and I’m putting up my very first batch of pickles today. So excited & nervous at the same time. Keep up the great work on this page… just so you know, your information realy helps!
After this crazy long Michigan winter, we ‘installed’ the no till, raised row garden in the area of of existing garden, just this week! In one lovely afternoon we used 5 bales at $5, existing shredded leaf mulch for good measure and then purchased a couple yards of great top soil. Our existing garden soil was something from the garden of eating already so…we’re looking forward to great results! We are learning as we go and appreciate your effort to share your knowledge with us! Our rototiller gave up the ghost last fall after 20 years…necessity IS the mother of invention! Thanks for your encouragement! Cheers!
That reminds me of my childhood as my granny use to grow their own food. I have seen her doing so and I think she really use to enjoy working and never felt tired or something like that. The freshness of self grown vegetation is mesmerizing. The idea of eating fresh and good ( without the use of pesticide) is good for health. Thanks for sharing this wisdom from your post!
I just found this site today,from something my cousin posted. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THA PAST 5 YEARS? I have tried to learn to garden, I guess I’m a slow learner! Thanks for all the tips and recipes and all the variety of info! I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
I am planning to use your raised row method on a 15 x 25 area this spring. I have the straw on order, and a question… do the roots penetrate the dead grass layer below the raised row? This yard was originally done with sod, and sod has a plastic mesh in it. I look forward to killing the grass, but what remains is a pretty stout thach. Will the plants grow in the straw and dirt above this thach layer until it’s decomposed? Also what about erosion? What keeps the dirt on the raised row from washing down into the walking row during a rain?
Tom – The roots will grow through – especially as everything breaks down. We have never had to much problem with erosion – especially if we keep the walkways mulched too. Good luck with your garden this year!!!
I, like many of your other followers found your site while looking for a tiller. I am going to try your method because it make good sense so thank you. I also bookmarked your seed companies and am going to try to grow nothing but heirloom veggies this year.
I have a large back yard that has never been finished, it currently looks like a small field fenced in. Can I cover the existing wild growth with the black plastic and skip the spreading of hay underneath. I haven’t touched it because it is riddled with rocks and I don’t think tilling it up isn’t an option. I am so excited that this might work for me! Thank you for any input.
Audrey – you can do that – or you might be able to build your raised rows right on top. If you can put your raised rows with about 12″ of soil on top – it should work well.
So, I stumbled across this site by accident while searching for a good deal on a small tiller. I definitely think I’ll be ditching the tiller this year in favor of this plan. Thank you!
I was looking for a Rototiller when I found your articles. Always wondered why not to use a spade to plant seeds at each spot. After reading I find I want to go your way of gardening. Saves me a lot of money and work. My wife has a very bad back and I was planning on raising the height of the beds with rail road ties so she doesn’t have to bend over much. Seen many responses to Rail road ties and wondered what your take would be about there use. Thanks for the good garden info.
Hi Bruce – glad you found our site! My take on railroad ties are that they are usually chock full of creosote or chemicals to keep them from rotting – which are not good of course for humans. We just keep our raised rows open – but i do understand wanting to raise them to keep from bending over. You might be able to find some rough sawn 2×12’s fairly cheap that would raise it up some. Good luck in your garden and I hope that helped answer your questions. Jim
Thanks, I will give that a try.
I am very excited to try this style of garden this spring. I only have one question… I live in south central TX. It is hot, hot, and hot during the late may and summer. I was planning to put the garden on the east side of my house where it would have direct morning light until about 1-2pm daily. Then only indirect light as blocked by my house. Your blog suggests only open direct sunlight as available. I’m trying to keep from burning it or having to constantly water. Do I have the right idea? Suggestions?
You have the right idea! For you, with the hotter temperatures, it is best to provide a little relief from the hot baking sun – and it sounds like you have a great plan in place to do do that. You may also have to adjust your watering more based on the heat and humidity, and apply a little more mulch around the plants to keep soil temps regulated – but it should work great! You will have to let us know how it turns out!
Jim and Mary
Thanks so much. I appreciate the points to watch (watering is a big one) and I will definitely keep you posted.
Hi,
I enjoyed looking at your garden, It is so beautiful and image myself that I too should get the result like you all. Do you use horse or cow manure? Because this year was not so great for peppers ,tomatoes and cucumber s. I hope that the next year would be great at our side of the world.
thanks keeping sending as I am learning a lot.
almas
This might be a very naiive question, but as I look at your photos, I don’t see raised rows, which I picture to mean they are off the ground. I only see a garden right on the ground. Please enlighten me. I am excited to get started this spring!:)
That is a great question. All of our rows are raised – but they do tend to flatten out a little and settle as the summer progresses. We add to them again each year with fresh layers of compost and straw. Ours are not super high off the ground – that allows for too much run off of water. We keep them about 4 to 6″ to start each year. Hope that helps!
Nice tips! I’ll definitely share these with my dad, he loves gardening and so do I!
love all the tips and advice.
Wow – what a great blog! Congrats on your successful farming adventure. Quick Q about the (brilliant) compost bins you use – it looks like you’re tossing entire vegetables in there to compost…any problems with seeds sprouting in your mix after you apply it to your beds? I’ve always thought “no seeds, no weeds” was the rule of thumb for compost, but I’ll happily follow your lead! And a second Q if you don’t mind – you’ve referenced before that 1″ of water a week is enough…but how do you know when you’ve reached an inch? Thanks for sharing your advice and ideas!
Thank you very much for this fabulous information! After reading your blog, I can’t wait to jump in to raised row gardening. Here’s my dilemma that I’m hoping you can help me out with:
I have a 15’x20′ space that I thought would be perfect for my garden. The bad news is that I discovered that this space used to have a garage on it and when I was weeding the area and dug down a bit I got a strong smell of gas or oil. Obviously not ideal for my organic garden plans! My next plan was to build wooden raised beds but the cost of doing that was going to force me to postpone my garden plans for a while. Raised rows seem like they’re the perfect solution, but I still have a few questions:
1) Do the roots of your plants extend down through the 6″ or so of top soil, the 6″ or so of straw and make it all the way into the soil underneath the raised row?
2) If the answer to #1 is “yes”, do you think it would work for me to use deeper layers of straw and top soil to keep the roots from getting down to the gas soil? Or will they just end up going way down deep regardless?
Thank you in advance for your guidance on this and thank you again for all this amazing information!
I just read this and couldn’t help weighing in — You should be very careful doing any gardening on top of soil that has been contaminated with gas. It was common for older gasoline to be ‘leaded’ – containing lead, which is poisonous and can cause serious illness. The worst part is, lead poisoning often doesn’t cause symptoms until it’s too late. Lead does not deteriorate in the soil, so you should have it tested (your local Ministry of Natural Resources or similar should be able to point you in the right direction) and removed if it’s contaminated. Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for your thoughts, Kathy! I contacted the Master Gardener’s Association and they’ve recommended some places to get the soil tested. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that I can make it work.
You have some great info and we have used a lot of it. We made tomato and pepper cages following your guidelines, and like how they works over all. We have had a VERY wet year in East TN and our peppers are now 5′ tall–taller than the cages. I’m having to put in stakes here and there to help support the plants.
I believe I’ve read that you garden organically. I would like to see some posts on bug solutions. I’ve had a horrible time with squash bugs and others this year. I really need a system before next year to get ahead of the pests. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks for the great ideas and recipes. You are a wonderful source. I enjoyed your TV video 🙂
Works now. Thank you so much for the quick fix! This series is really changing my outlook on gardening. My husband and I have a garden every year, but as we age, we are looking for easier ways to accomplish it. This really helps. Thanks!
Trying to go through each of the steps, but step number 2 does not link. How can I get to that page? Love your site and have learned so much through it! Thanks!
hmmm… i will check it out and try to fix it right now 🙂
Julie – should be fixed now and thank you so much for letting us know! If for some reason it does not – here is the direct link : http://oldworldgardenfarms.com/2012/11/27/preparing-and-planting-the-raised-row-bed-garden/
Can you give me instructions on how to make your own compost bin – what all do you put in it,etc. Thanks so much. Love reading everything you have!
We used to spread dog “solids” around the perimeter of our garden to keep raccoons and deer away. I watched some cows that grazed around the outside of the fence actually move away when they came in contact with the “predator” scent. I would think your cat leavings would be effective for rabbits.
I was so infuriated I when I saw that ALL – every single one!!! – of our green beans had been carefully snipped off at the growing tip…. from every single plant!!! We have a terrible problem with RABBITS – the cotton tail type – in the CITY – even downtown and urban areas – of Omaha! You see them hopping around everywhere there is a bit of grass at dusk or dawn – sometimes the middle of the day!
I KNEW there was a rabbit in the neighbor’s yard – suspected to be burrowed under their deck – but had NO idea it could chomp up a half bushel of green beans in just a few days!
Thinking about the situation – I didn’t want to use any kind of poison bait, because our cats are in the garden and are “unusual eaters” – even saw one eating strawberries! BUT – I now have a whole plastic bagful of litter box scoopings – particularly the ‘hunks’ of urine-soaked litter. I don’t think that amount of ‘nitrogen’ will be too overwhelming for the plants – that will set them on a growing spree instead of a bean-setting spree! I don’t plan on using the ‘solids’, though — too concentrated.
I plan on using rubber gloves to crumble the litter hunks around the perimeter of the green beans — and see what happens. The plants are blooming again — so we should have little beans again soon.
This is REALLY maddening, since our summers are so short – and if we get a good TWO harvests out of green beans this year (with such a cold, wet, late spring) we will be lucky. These are a ‘staple’ in our house — and I had really planned on canning 1-1/2 pint jars until I ran out of jars! I hope I can still get a couple of dozen, at least!
I’ve read that urine marking will keep LOTS of animals away. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.
It is so frustrating to lose crops to animals!! Good luck the rest of the season and we will keep our fingers crossed for you too!
I put straw down between the rows and now have grass growing! How do I prevent the straw from sprouting?
Twyla – I am wondering if you might have hay mixed in with your straw instead of straight straw. Straw should be free of weed seeds – but sometimes, depending on where you buy it – they may have it mixed in with weeds or grass that was in a field that had both.
I had heard about using straw in the vegetable garden, though after reading your recommendation of just using it in between rows I’m wondering if I piled it on top of my seeds will it just take longer to see the plants come up or have I somehow smothered them? Love your site!!!
Thanks for these 4 posts. I’m excited to incorporate some of these ideas in a few weeks.
Please sign me up for more ideas, thanks for the great tips.
Years ago we lived on 85 acres surrounded by forest. Blood meal worked for keeping the critters out of the garden (laid thickly around the whole perimeter of the garden). At the time, we could get blood meal from the co-op, these days you might have to do a google search.
We live in South Australia and have terrible problems with possums eating our veggies. It has put a complete stop to us this year until we can come up with a solution.
You will have to let us know how the garden grows for you this year! Good luck and hopefully you can keep the gophers and mice out of the potatoes! Jim
Hi! I’m enjoying your blog very much!
But I do have a question about your raised row method. In the past I’ve tried raising potatoes under straw, and I use it also for mulch. It works very well, but I’ve had some problems with mice. In fact, the mice got more of my potatoes than I did!
Have you had similar problems? How do you deal with the little buggers? I’ve thought of putting bait trays out, using commercial rat and mouse poison, but I’m leery of too much of that stuff in my garden.
Thanks! And keep up the fine blog! I’ve recommended it to all my friends!
Hi Howard – so glad you enjoy the blog! Wow – that does sound like a problem with the mice. We have never had that problem – knock on wood. We grow ours in the ground with just a light covering of straw on top – is that how you have been growing them? Jim
Hi! Yes, They grew very well that way, but the mice loved them! The gophers get after them too, but the mice are the worst. I’m going to try a gopher repellent this year, and see if that will keep them out. And I do intend to try your raised row method for most of my garden, and maybe even sell my tiller.
Hello. A friend of mine raises veges on a larger scale and sells them to a local veggie auction. They use metal lengths of pipe and put mouse bait inside. They put several of these home-made stations thruout their garden making sure that the bait goes to the center of the pipe. Or you can crimp the one end and send the bait to that end by tilting the pipe after baiting. That way dogs, cats etc cannot get into the bait.
Just a word of warning about using poison to kill mice. I would be afraid that the mice would die and be eaten by a family pets…..?…and not sure you would want any sort of poison around your food garden.
I tried poisoning mice in my house who was after my stored food. Several attempts using the poison were made, it acts as a blood thinner and they bleed to death. In my case, I then went to the old style mouse trap. I got the little critter….the mouse trap went off and only injured the mouse and then there was blood all over my kitchen floor and then going into the laundry room with even the walls covered. The blood thinner made it look like a murder had taken place.
Took forever to clean up the mess and sterilize things.
My neighbor, who won’t even kill a bug, used a live trap……mouse goes in and then he was given a trip to the park.
We have recently installed a chicken run. The fencing we bought for the purpose of keeping out the snakes and even mice is 1/4″ hardware cloth. This stuff is galvanized coated so not to rust and will last a long time. For the chicken run we were told to put it 12″ in the ground to keep burrowing animals out. So far it works great. I plan to do the same for the garden I am prepping right now for next spring using Old World Gardening method. Only thing I will need to do then is keep the birds out with some bird netting. 1/4″ hardware cloth I am buying from home depot as special order. It came 4 feet wide on a 100 foot role for $99.95. I figures this a small investment along with the t-posts I bought and figure it should last at least 10 years.
Hi Michelle! We are glad you found us and glad you like the site! I think you will really like the raised row approach and you will have to let us know how it works out for you! Jim
We have 220sq. feet of veg. garden (began as flower beds 8 yrs ago when we moved in) I’m happy to say that we’re down to one bed of “flowers” that are edible/medicinal and still beautiful. We have an acre of ground and we’re wanting to expand our garden. I was wanting to put in several 4×8 raised beds but after seeing your awesome pics….i think we’ll save the additional cost and do raised rows. Thanks for the inspiration. Also, we’ve collected pallets all winter and i’m so very glad i read your trick to disassemble them before we got into that big job. I think you’ve created another blog-stalker!
I think your ‘cucumbers’ are actually zucchini. Love the information, though. Hoping to try something different with gardening this year.
Ha! You are so right Kevin! Thank you – I will have to correct that title of the picture! Jim
I’m going to give it a go at building the compost bins you have above, I do live in a condo with a fairly small backyard…so I will downsize the project to fit my yard. Do you have front slats to cover the front of the bins, or do u leave them open? I was thinking of enclosing mine completely but leaving the top open of course. What do you think? Im new at this HELP lol
Hi Nicole – I think it’s great that you are going to try it! You can certainly enclose it in and leave the top open – or you can even put a few slats over the top to enclose it all. I would just make sure you have one of the sides made so that you can easily take it off when it comes time to get it out. Good luck and if we can be of any help don’t hesitate to ask! Jim
We live in an area with many, many deer, so we merely built a high fence to keep them out. We used treated fence posts with 2×3 extensions, and 48″ wide stucco wire arranged so that we have an 8′ tall fence all around. We’ve never had any critter problems as a result, and the fence was quite inexpensive.
How do you keep the animals (rabbits, deer and squirrels) out of your garden? My husband is wanting to plow up a larger area for me but he is worried about the critters eating everything that we plant. We have a smaller one by the house but our dogs keep everything away but Im wanting to expand.
Kristy,
We are very fortunate and have not had a lot of problems with animals thus far. I am a little worried about the coming year though, as the deer have seemed to locate our garden and winter rye over the past few months! We are going to fence in the main area in the coming year to help too. Thanks so much for stopping by! Jim
Kristy, I learned many years ago that if you spread dog poo around the perimeter of your garden, the animals think there is a predator there and won’t bother the plants. I know it sounds a little gross but fertilizer is just broken down, composted cow, chicken, horse, etc. leavings. There were cows that grazed around my garden and I watched them back away from the plants when I did it. Luckily I had a couple of big dogs.
We have issues with rabbits eating everything from tomatoes to hot peppers and green beans. Red pepper has worked. It even kept the squirrels out of the beds. Wet the plants down, and while damp, sprinkle on the red pepper. Don’t spare the pepper! It has not hurt the plants and the no one bothers them. Only drawback is when it rains, you have to repeat. But we are finding there must be some residual effect even when the leaves are washed clean. Must be in the ground for a bit. As for deer, very high fencing. We’re in Iowa and the deer are a problem even for a city garden.