How many and how big are your gardens?

dottile46
dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

I composing a post over in the Personal Journal category and suddenly have a question for you all.

How many separate garden beds you have? How many square feet of garden space do you have?

I don't have an answer for you just yet. Maybe tomorrow evening as the weather is supposed to be fair and I am hoping to get outside and measure mine.

Comments

  • herbantherapy
    herbantherapy Posts: 453 ✭✭✭✭

    Hmmm I think I have 26 separate garden beds for various plantings. I have 3/4 acre that my house and garage share.

    As for veggies I have 4 raised boxes of 23”x42”, a long in ground bed 3’x 60’, 4 window boxes I grow strawberries in and I have around a dozen 15 gallon pots I use depending on what I grow in the season.

    For herbs I have 7 terraced beds of 4’x 12’ and a 6’ circumference spiral.

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hi @dottile46 hm.

    As a multidimensial being 😉 I have really no use of the belief of a garden'bed'. - Instead I just plant things where ever, you know a bit like how Nature herself does it. It works alot better, & takes much less physical effort & other more or less nonsense.

    What do you think of this? 🙂

  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I want to build some raised beds, but I do tend to plant stuff where it "fits", and where the hose can reach to water it. Since I only plant what I like to eat, and a little to dehydrate, I don't need big gardens. I also tend to get started plants as I have better luck than from seed.

    However, that is changing, with learning more about what varieties to grow, and about how to preserve. Someday I may even take up canning!

  • SherryA
    SherryA Posts: 314 ✭✭✭

    I agree, @dottile46. I do have a couple of raised beds that I created, but mostly I plant things wherever. I try to think of how it happens in nature.

  • Megan Venturella
    Megan Venturella Posts: 678 ✭✭✭✭

    I have 5 4'x8' raised beds, a little greenhouse, and a bunch of containers. I always crowd things a little. I live in a suburban lot, so space is limited. My lawn may have to go!

  • greyfurball
    greyfurball Posts: 591 ✭✭✭✭

    I live on a 3 acre lot which was relatively converted to lawn decades ago but then I'm surrounded by lots of woods and trees on 3 sides of the perimeter of that land. So the house and outbuildings use up about an acre. Then lawn is about a 1/3 of an acre and then the rest is converted to garden and beds dotted all over but it looks like I've converted each to blend into the land to make natural settings.

    So some of that is scaped flower beds, some is scaped garden beds, some is scaped tree/bush and flower beds etc. And then there is still some lawn leftover to help tie everything together and make the final result blend.

    As I get more and more into gardening I often take some more lawn area and convert it to another growing area. As an example, the Summer of 2019 I added a fruit section in a couple of places. So now I have several kinds of berry plants , some kiwi trees and some low growing bushes in different beds which all came from the lawn area.

    But many of my beds are not all for food. Quite a few of my beds are a floral/garden blend since I utilize a lot of wildflower mixes to add interest and color to different areas. The upside there it also adds wildlife and pollinators also.

    So the easiest way to explain me, as my interest and knowledge grows related to "growing stuff" I have the advantage I have space to add more things to my homestead.

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭

    oh, to be sure that no one pops up with "But rainbow, you DO have gardenbeds. Look at your continuing Rainbows it has like 12 in your 55+ ft. rainbow" - True.

    Yet as you notice: any Rainbow is in this Specific shape, so according to its true nature, of course I had to Recreate it,

    But the rest of the 4 geographical areas.... neither Nature cares, & thus not me either, lol


  • DeeperEating
    DeeperEating Posts: 63 ✭✭✭

    I have just over 200 square feet of growing space in all of my raised beds and have additional items growing in pots (2 urban apples trees, 2 patio blueberries, a raspberry, and several small pots of perennial herbs).


    These span 3 gardens (2 at my house and one at a community garden plot).

    We also grow sage and hops in ground in our tiny backyard.

  • wbt.affiliates
    wbt.affiliates Posts: 100 ✭✭✭

    I live in a trailer park. We're fortunate to have a larger lot than most who live here. I have 12 garden spots. In the largest one I grow echinacea, elderberries and raspberries. I have 2 rows of half-barrels, one at the roadside front of my house, one alongside my house, the one on the porch is a container garden. The one in the dog run continues along the side of my house. One, which is only about 2 feet wide separates my lot from my neighbors. I have nothing on the north side of the house, two oval-shaped gardens, one along the long side of the dog pen and another one at the back of the dog run. I rely a lot on containers. I don't know how to find out my actual square footage.

    This year I'm going to put in paths so the guy who mows for us doesn't have so much to do.

    Putting in paths means laying down a layer of cardboard and covering it in some of the roadside mountain sand (loose red sandstone that flows down the cliff), bordered by rocks gathered from the same location. If I keep it pretty, I can keep my gardens. The new owners like it pretty, but don't want anyone to dig any more gardens, so I guess I'll need to keep my grass after all. I'd rather have ALL of it in gardens.

  • chimboodle04
    chimboodle04 Posts: 286 ✭✭✭

    We live on a suburban lot that is just under half an acre. Raised beds have worked best for us for our annual crops. We currently have 16 of them in various sizes totaling 720 sq ft. of growing space. This summer we plan on adding a larger permanent herb bed and an additional cold frame bed to grow more food for longer - eventually, I see a greenhouse in our future too :)

  • dottile46
    dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

    @rainbow I think it sounds wonderful, put them where they want to be.

    Wow, I've got to read these again, getting some ideas here....yeah....can't keep up with what I've got, lol.