worms

A Native Garden: Using cedar logs for a raised bed garden

This fall we installed a unique garden made with native cedar logs. The winter vegetable garden design was done by Amy Crowell and the installation took two days. It turned out to be a beautiful garden structure and we look forward to see the beds filled out with the winter veggies. Congratulation Genny!
We also featured Genny’s compost pile in the slideshow because it a a great design example. The first images show the area before our fall rains and then you see the native weeds in the next images. During the build you will notice we use newspaper as our weed block. We have seen the store bought weed block in many yards and neither weeds nor veggies pay attention to the barrier. The one thing that does suffer from the separation of new landscaping and existing soils are the earthworms. Newspaper is biodegradable, and free and helps kill off the initial weeds but eventually decomposes to allow earthworms into your garden. The mulch and a gardeners diligent weeding will eventually rid that area of weeds. We will rephotograph this garden after a few weeks to see the progress.

Winter in Texas is very mild and the gardening challenges are minimal. If you are thinking of starting a garden, winter is the time…very few bugs, cool days with good sun, and more chances of rain. However, be aware that dry air and wind can desiccate plants as well as the hot sun so pay attention to your watering schedule. Check out our winter advice blog post.