When the world is as crazy as it is, there is nothing like getting your hands dirty shoveling dirt and manure to get refocused. And because I like to cook, I want to start growing as many of the ingredients I want to use as I can.

When we moved to Nova Scotia from the west coast last November, the property we came to had some long-neglected growing spaces and I could not WAIT to get started on them. This spring has been all about “getting ready” and I thought I would share what we have done (so far). Note: I am a rank amateur gardener and vegetable grower—anything I have done here can be done by literally anyone. Although we have a bit of property you don’t need much space (even a patio) to do what I am doing here. I will share my successes and failures, so follow along!

So here is what I started with: 4, 6x6 raised beds that had been neglected. I should have taken a “before” picture of what they looked like before I did anything to them, but here they are cleaned up a bit and turned over in March:

Note that the soil should be at or near the top of the raised bed not 6 inches or more below!

Now I also have a 10x6 “greenhouse” (that was purchased during COVID but moved with us still in the box) that my wife and I built and positioned on top of a gravel base that may at one time have been where a shed was placed.

My intention had been to buy a whole bunch of ProMix to add to the raised beds (and the ones I would construct for the greenhouse), but I had the good sense to take a course offered at Cochrane Farms by Frank Cochrane on raised bed gardening. Frank introduced me to “Hugelkultur”—here is an AI summary of how it works:

“A mound is built using layers of wood, branches, compost, and topsoil. The decaying wood provides nutrients and helps retain moisture, while the composted materials enrich the soil and create a fertile growing medium.

• Benefits:

  Hugelkultur beds offer several advantages, including increased growing space, reduced watering needs, and easier gardening due to the raised nature of the bed.

• Materials:

  Common materials include logs, branches, twigs, straw, grass clippings, manure, and topsoil.

• Building a Hugelkultur Bed:

  1. Dig a trench where the bed will be located.

  2. Layer the wood debris and other materials in the trench.

  3. Add a layer of compost and manure.

  4. Place a layer of topsoil on top for planting.”

So instead of ProMix we bought some HAY. Frank recommended using hay, not “straw”, since it decomposes quickly and hay contains all the nutrients you need for the garden while straw is all that is left after the nutrients are put into the grain. I am fortunate that a fellow across the road has some horses and he gave me some aged horse manure for FREE that I used to get me to where I am now.

Here is what all that looked like in my garden. The first pic is the trench dug for the hay:

Then hay is added…

And repeated for the whole bed. Note I have added a “spacer” since 6 feet is really too wide to maintain properly (and you don’t want to step into the garden to compress the soil and damage roots of plants).

Next aged manure is worked in and now the first two beds are ready to plant!

Oh yeah, the greenhouse. The boxes were built to exactly fit inside, built of 2x6 lumber so 12 inches deep, held together by galvanized angle framing and nuts/bolts. The boxes are two feet wide each, and about 9.5 feet long.

The boxes were filled to the top with hay and then aged horse manure. Still to come is some topsoil and these babies will be ready for planting! The cords are from the hay bales and I will be using these as support for the tomatoes!

So that is where we are at now! I started some leeks and red onions from seed about two weeks ago and they will be planted in about another two weeks, along with the tomato plants and some lettuce, carrots, and other goodies!

Please comment and ask questions—I will learn from them!