Another question- How do I go about creating a level potager. I've got bumps and such!

Your beds sound exactly like my flower bed. I put old carpet (free) on the walkways and covered with woodchips. The carpet stays down better than landscape fabric, and stops the woodchips from simply sinking into the mud every spring. You will never see the carpet. Not sure what you meant by mulch. Big wood chips are good because they don't break down quickly.

What do you mean by "bumps"? Small bumps will be taken out by the sodcutter. After you strip the sod, I would cover it all with some organic matter (manure, compost, whatever you can get) and rototill everything in. You will probably want something to keep the soil in, like wood or rock edging.

I used a sodcutter, but I now believe stripping the sod was a mistake. I lost so much topsoil that way, and there were still grass roots after stripping 2 inches of topsoil. If I had to do it over, I would use several applications of roundup to kill all the roots, then rototill everything in.

Here's what it looks like.

Gottagarden:

Lovely! I want my garden to look like yours when it grows up!

Question about the carpet - will carpet pad work too?

CUTE!!!
Carpeting is better than carpet pad. Carpet pad falls apart and then isn't the best for the ground. The carpeting rocks. I use that outside our greenhouse at church. WHen it gets disgusting I pull it up, weeds and all and then just grab another hunk out of someone's trash.

The arches are fantastic gottagarden!

GGG

I am borrowing this carpet idea. Down right excited about it too. Path maintenance is always a big problem for me...which makes it a big problem for DH. :) I got some free and the rest is really cheap stuff from Home Depot. Funny thing - at Home Depot I was like..I don't like that color. Let's get this one. My husband, "You're never going to see it. Your plants aren't going to say omg..look at that ugly carpet."

"True. But I'll know it is there."

I went to a carpeting shop and they said "help yourself" to their dumpster. Old carpet is nice, already cut into 3 foot wide strips and rolled up. Lots of neutral browns. The dumpster has a side door, so there is no crawling around. Check your local carpet shop.

Thanks everyone! Carpet it will be!

Good luck to you Jenwestie. This is my first year with a Potager bed. It's been so much fun. I wished I'd known about carpet sooner, I used landscapers fabric, it was so difficult to keep in place.

Gottagarden, your garden is adorable. Please show more pictures when it begins to fill in.

Edna

I agree Edna, wish I had known about the carpet also! We had just replaced ours and I had rolls of old stuff I could've recycled rather than haul to the dump. I used landscape fabric, pinning it was tough in areas, used 2 boxes of landscape anchors then free wood chips. As for leveling I ignored the ground (its a slight slope and leveling would've taken forever, its a large area) My dh leveled the beds for me, if you look at the photo you can see how the back beds are higher, used scrap lumber to fill in the bottom-walked around with his level and checked everything before pounding in the stakes. Oh and as for sizes of beds, I used Douglas Fir #2 Grade, coated in linseed oil (food-safe)-bought the 10 foot long boards and had some cut in half so the beds are 10 by 5. That is a little wide, I can't reach the inside very well so I think 4 by 8 is wiser. The paths I decided on by pushing my wheelbarrow around and making sure I had room to back up and turn! Started using the 4 foot wide landscape fabric to lay out the paths first, before I built the beds-after beds were built then I filled in all around with chips. HTH a little. Oh and the bottom of my old greenhouse had no floor and I got roofing shingles (mismatched0 from a relative-nothing grows through them, EVER...if I had enough I would use them for paths, they are heavy and don't shift too much-just a thought if you have access to any.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Your a professional! Sprinklers and everything. I did mine on my own, along with my friend Advil *lol*. Nothing is level, there are bumps and defects but who cares *lol*

I can't wait to see more photos as it progresses. You did a really good job.

Here's mine before and after-
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I don't have much of a backyard and what I do have is shade. I built this on the side of my driveway.

Big pat on the back to you!

Edna