City farming with rotated animal cages over raised vegetable beds.
August 19, 2010
Urban Gardening: How to Build a Raised Bed and Hoop House
Posted by Barbara Peterson under Food Localization, Growing Your Own, Survival, Unique Ideas, war on monsanto | Tags: farming, Food Localization, Gardening, Growing Your Own, raised beds, urban gardening, vegetables |[2] Comments
August 19, 2010 at 4:00 pm
This is really cool, Barbara. Thank you for posting this.
We had to gopher-proof our raised beds because of the obvious. Little rhodent invasions to our garden. So….
We attached tripled chicken wire to our raised beds.
BEWARE…use leather gloves! Even then, cuts and pricks are likely, so be careful.
My husband said afterward that he would prefer to purchase heavier-gauge, longer-lasting, more expensive gopher wire next time, to avoid the double labor for later after the chicken wire rusts out. For now, it is doing the job just fine however.
I had to notice this too:
Last year, we did chicken wire but found that gophers came to loudly chomp on the wood frame in order to get to our tomatoes (they didn’t succeed). This year, gophers aren’t going anywhere near the raised beds. The difference: I planted a frame of calendula (marigold) flowers all the way around the beds. Apparently the gophers don’ t like the smell of them, so they stay away. Of course, it’s old news that those flowers keep other bugs away too.
I’ve also planted oregano around the edge to attract bees when it goes into bloom. They love it, and it helps to fertilize the plants while also sustaining the bees. Win-win!
August 20, 2010 at 8:42 am
There is a bill in the Senate that will take away from us the right to even grow a garden…of of the ex-Monsanto big shot appointed the Czar by Obama has proposed the law…Can’t have you eating real food, they want you sick so big pharma can make more billions!!