Planning

We moved into this house in winter, 2011. We live in zone 6b..The first year, I just planted a few tomatoes and used a rented tiller to prepare an area about 50 x 20 feet. The two shots below are from 2011 before we got started. The back corner has a large Green Giant arborvitae and two smaller ones on either side. 

We installed some of the beds late summer of 2011. The beds are about 4 x 7 feet each, and 6 inches deep. I put newspapers and straw over the remaining grass so the area would be ready to use the following spring. To fill the beds, I used the soil from the paths around them, and added lots of grass clippings and leaves that I shredded with my lawn mower. I also added rock phosphate, some peat moss, and a few cups per bed of Organic Choice fertilizer. The following spring, we topped the beds with a few inches of topsoil/mushroom compost mixture purchased from our local mulch company.

Above is the layout of the garden in 2012, our first year growing. The porch is to the north and the long  bamboo bed is to the south, so most of the beds get a full day of sun.

This is late spring, 2012, after the mulch was laid in paths. We built trellises using concrete reinforcement wire, and placed them along the fence. We grew butternut squash on them in 2012. You can see the garlic and onions coming up.

Throughout the summer, we added composted rabbit manure (see my Compost page on this blog) to the beds, and I mulched with a mixture of leaves and grass clippings.