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Kimberly K Bontrager
I am in central Ks zone 6b living on a farm that I am the 4rth generation to live here. I am having a difficult year trying to master a new area of my career and trying to set up a new raised bed garden with concrete bricks. I am battling bermuda grass which has been the most difficult problem here as every root that gets broken off and not picked out creates a new plant. There are also many elm trees on the property which drop several thousand seeds per tree every spring, and a plague of grasshoppers qhich have presently decimated most of my garden plants this summer. I have had heavy losses of plants between drought and grasshoppers and pill bugs. The soil here on the farm is a clay which has some loam mixed in with very little hummus and gets rock hard like concrete. As I soak then dig down a couple spades to dig out the bermuda then crumble and pick out the bermuda roots I have been adding chopped wood branches and paper and a small amt of sand, as much compost as possible and using wood chips for mulch and straw. It is slow going and my health has not been great so does not move along quickly
Esmeralda Kadilliu Nice having you here! Show us some pictures as you progress, would love to see your 4th generation farm.
A. E. Sounds like you’ve had setbacks. Stay positive. The gardening community wishes you the best.
John Ehrling Wishing you well while you work on your farm.
Kimberly K Bontrager Still building more beds just completed the one on the right now working on the same size one for the left. It is a tedious job to dig out and remove the thick rope like roots of bermuda grass many of these roots look like fibrous plastic and wire like roothairs
Kimberly K Bontrager Soil layered with compost, wood branches and logs, biochar, shredded junkmail, and cardboard cardboard, grassclippings and well rotted straw that is very old from our old barn that hasn't been used for a good 30 years the soil is fairly high on the bricks and I still need to apply more mulch on top.
John Ehrling Wow. Looks great. Moving all those cinderblocks has to be exhausting!
Kimberly K Bontrager I had the most problems with the first one. I never thought it would be so hard to get them level but leveling the very uneven ground where the first bed not next to the house is has been the most difficult. The end goal is to eventually get all the beds I want set up at one block high then as I add compost and mulch continue to increase the volume of soil in each bed till I can add a second layer of blocks and finally possibly a 3rd. I wish to have an easy to manage sustem set up in such a way that I can garden as long as possible in the comming years. I would love to have beds end up being easy access for an older person to manage. I turn 60 this year and it is a move it or lose it point where your body starts losing strength every year you do not fight to keep it. I want to make my garden as easy to manage for an old person as possible in hopes of being able to easily garden into my 80S or 90's if I can.
A. E. Way to go Kimberly.