Garden Hints

I am nearing the end stage of installing a nice garden in my back yard.  There are several small pointers  I would like to share.  These apply to building a raised garden.

1. Plan it before you build it and stick with the plan.  Changes part way through result in a lot more work.  
2. Install the plumbing, if you are doing plumbing, before installing the garden.  Digging under and through boxes is very challenging.  Plumbing is very nice to have.
3. If you are connecting this into your existing sprinkler system, make sure that one zone is just the garden.  Don't mix zones.
4. Build the boxes before you bring in the dirt to fill them.  That good rich dirt will grow the thickest matte of weeds and grass with the deepest roots you can possibly imagine in very short order.  This changes your good soil into yard waste.  Covering it with tarps is not effective either.  That was my mistake.
5. Find an optimum height for your garden boxes.  Some considerations include:
1. All the weed pulling and planting happens at the top level.  To remove the weeds you will have to bend over however far that is.  
2. Most of the produce collection happens above the garden bed.  Some can happen a few feet above the bed.  Think corn.  Or vine melons on a trellis.
3. A lot more time is spent pulling weeds than harvesting produce.  And harvesting produce has more inherent reward making it seem like less work than it is.
4. It is easier to work from a seated position than it is to work from a step stool or kneeling position.  
5. Not all beds have to be the same height.  You may choose to make one 3' high for just strawberries and another 8" for just corn.
6. If the garden box is taller than the wheel barrow, when you move the dirt from the delivery site to the garden, you will basically have to do it twice.  I did mine with two 2x10" boards high.  This gives the barrow almost 2" of clearance.  If I did it again, I would do one 2x10" followed by one 2x8" board.
6. The wider the box is, the more you have to stretch out to get weeds or produce out of the middle.  Reaching causes fatigue.  A lot of people advocate 4' wide boxes.  I prefer 3' wide for this reason.
7. Don't bother chipping out the sod before installing the garden boxes.  This is a lot of work.  You may want to put down some landscaping cloth, newspaper, or herbicide  to help prevent some plants from growing up from the gottom.  If you do a short box for corn or something  which will have roots which want penetrate below the original ground level, definitely do not use an herbicide and probably don't use landscaping cloth.  Even then, removing the grass is not strictly necessary but may result in more weeds later.  I would at least break the soil up a little though.
8. The whole box, if more than 12" high, should not be filled with just good dirt.  This saves money as well as helping avoid a later issue weird growth deep in the box.  Only the top 4 to 12" should be good dirt depending on the root depth desired.  12" for corn.  6" for most of your above ground plants.  Below that can be gravel, logs, untreated lumber scraps ... or other items that serve as a filler as well as allow drainage.  Some people strongly advocate logs since they will decay and add nutrients to the soil over the years.  This can be a good place to hide some yard waste, but not grass clipping etc.  I have very rocky soil.  Every time I dug up a sprinkler or planted a tree, I have not been putting any of the rocks back in the hole.  I have accumulated a cubic yard or so of rocks which have been put to good use at the bottom of the garden beds.
9. Leave lots of room between garden beds.  It is one thing for yourself to walk between the beds.  It is quite another to take a wheelbarrow through and another yet to turn the barrow around.
10. Both the height of the boxes as well as the distance from the fence can help expose the garden to light by getting it out of the shade of the fence.  This will affect how early or late you can harvest.  
11. I did my first two boxes at one level high 3'x8'x10".  This was a little awkward as the 8' boards don't fit in the car and are just more awkward to walk through doorways etc.  I did the others at 3'x6'x20".  This is a lot easier to work with and conveniently the trunk of my car closes with the wood inside.
12. Buy the wood for one box in one trip to the store if you are having them cut the boards for you.  The guys at homedepot and Lowe's  are quite happy to cut your lumber, but their accuracy is about +/-1/4".  You get some more accuracy if they set a stop and cut all your 6' sections.  Then set a new stop and cut all your 3' sections.  Of course, I am rounding off.  You have to allow for the amount of material the saw eats.  FYI, most of those guys don't.  Doing it in two trips, I have some sections that were supposed to be 2' 11 7/8" that are almost a half inch different in length than others.  It looks a little sloppy.