Ideas from the Garden Center by Sandy Hollingsworth

Gardeners are notorious for getting ideas and finding new ways to use space in their garden by visiting garden stores and nurseries. After the fall cold snap when our gardens succumb and we find ourselves sad about the abrupt end to the season, we just can’t stop thinking about gardening.  While you may know that raised beds are a great way to use space and reach your veggies as they grow, you may like to see some ideas to ponder for next season. A rectangle (pictured) is the most common shape for a raised bed and it is generally recommended that it be 3-4 feet wide and about 6-8 feet long so that you can reach if from each end. Shorter is just fine and having two or more is often desired depending on how much produce and variety that you want to grow.  Three tips in the mountains for new raised beds are to line the bottom with hardware cloth to deter critters from digging from below, adding row covers to warm the soil for seeds and keep insects and critters, including birds, from snat