February 8, 2025

It’s that time of year; where the frozen ground and chilly temps stir cravings for soft soil and garden beds full of plants soaking up the sunshine.

Of course, around here, it’s more of frying in the sunshine and triple-digit temperatures, but I digress….

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but the unsettled nature of the world has me wanting to focus on finding localized resources to keep my family safe, fed, and healthy, the most obvious option here being a veggie garden this year.

We took a break from gardening last year, as my daughter was super young, and I was very much tied up with managing my new role as a working mom of two littles, while my husband balanced his very demanding full-time+ job with spending any extra moment (and dollar) on building our new home. It would’ve just been too much on all of us to include a garden, and since it was so hot last summer, I didn’t feel comfortable having either of the little kids outside for very long, for fear they’d get fried themselves.

However, now we’ve got a good rhythm going for our family and balancing all of our responsibilities (or at least being able to shrug it off better when the chaos takes over), and my son is now old enough to enjoy being more independent outside in a safe way. For Christmas, we got him a set of kid-sized garden tools (from Amazon), which he really wants to learn how to use.

Thus, this summer we’re bringing back the garden! Instead of having raised beds out in the back yard off of the porch, I’m going to section off a part of the yard between the northern fence on the property line and the north side of the house. It’s one of the only spots on our current property that can be sectioned off easily so that the chickens and horses can’t get into it (the chickens will eat EVERYTHING if allowed into the garden, and even Joe – one of the horses – has pulled up a jalapeño plant out of a raised bed before), and is somewhat sheltered from our pretty extreme summer conditions out here.

While yes, there’s some shade, it’s important to remember that “full sun” means 6+ hours of sun, and this particular area isn’t shaded by trees at all. Also, the picture above was taken today, and there’s far less shade cast in the summer when the sun isn’t as far south.

I’ve previously had raised beds with lettuce up against that north wall of the house, and they still had more than enough sunshine, and got a bit of protection from the midday sun. I’ve found that many plants I’ve had that don’t get some sort of shade end up just frying, regardless of being “full sun” and getting plenty of water. The sun and heat is just too intense for a lot of plants if they don’t get some sort of shade during the day.

Since I’m still beholden to my husband’s rule of not putting in anything perminent, and we’ll hopefully be moving to the new house this summer anyways, I’m going to put everything in raised beds. I have five raised beds that are 2′ wide, 4′ long, and 1′ deep that I bought on amazon a couple of years ago (a couple pictured above), and two old water troughs that I want to use as well, both being of similar proportions, just much deeper.

I plan to use the shallow raised beds (they’re on legs) for lettuces and herbs that don’t need deeper soil, and then the water troughs for plants that do need deeper soil. I also want to get some other planters that are halved wine barrels or something similar for some more options for plants that need deeper soil than the smaller beds can offer. I might try to use the grow bags again, but our climate is so arid that the soil dries out way too quickly through the felt material of the grow bags.

The section that I’ll be blocking off has a fence with a gate between it and the front yard, but I’ll need to build a second gate into the fence I’ll need to build on the eastern side of the garden area, as that’s where I’ll be approaching with garden tools, water, etc. I’ll also need to have a several foot buffer between the western fence (that boarders the front yard) and the eastern fence (that would partition it off from the back yard) of several feet between them and the raised beds; wild horses can lean their heads over the western fence and my horses could lean over the eastern fence. Both situations spell disaster for the plants within reach. Luckily, my chickens aren’t very athletic, so having the new fence about 4′ high will keep them out pretty easily.

The space itself is approximately 22′ wide (east to west) by 31′ long (north to south), and it’s that long side I’ll need to build a fence down. As the fence also needs to not be permanent, but also stout enough to hold up to high winds and pressure from horses, I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to build it. We kept the 8′ by 6″ round posts that we had previously used for the horse corral fencing, so that’s an option. However, Joe was able to push that fencing around pretty easily, as the no-climb horse fencing we used was pretty flexible, and he’d just push it down from the top with his neck. I’m thinking about using some 2″x4″s to build fencing panels with chicken wire in them and boards across the top and bottom in a frame, in hopes that might keep the fence from warping too much. The only issue then is… how am I going to put them up? I could get a couple of 4″x4″ posts to sink in and then pull out, but I’m also trying to use what I have as best I can and not spend a lot of $$ on this project (building this house is expensive as all heck).

I’ll be working on the fencing strategy and garden layout over the next couple of months, so I’ll update the blog as my plans come along.

Until next time, happy trails!