That sounds like a great working plan. My only regret with covering the bottom of our raised beds is the fact that earth worms don't last in them. We've finally quit trying to put them in. We used aged and/or rotting wood in the very bottom of ours (2 1/2 ft. deep) as a filler and I don't think I'd do that again. That wood doesn't seem to be decomposing...once again, live and learn. The only varmint of the non bug variety we've ever had problems with in our raised beds, once they were planted, was a huge ground hog in our sweet potato bed.
Planting My garden with the sandy soil...mostly vertical
- Thread starter Wildwood
- Start date
Thank you SouthernBreeze. It's not getting any easier for sure but this way helps if you can ever get it just the way you want it.
Bud in Fla
Veteran Member
I've been digging them up for 10 years and they still pop up. Dig them up, drop them in a big trash can with a liner so they can't escape but some still manage to survive. The place next door seems to pride themselves on their sandspur crop. I started bush hogging it in self defense! Then wire brush my tires in their driveway and drive around the neighborhood to shake off any strays.
I've heard that lime helps but so far, I can't tell.
We have 3 dogs - all rescues - and I hate for them to get sandspurs in their paws.
I would hate that for ours too. We've ended up with four and two of them are pretty old. Those things sound horrific.
Bud in Fla
Veteran Member
SouthernBreeze
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Yep. That's sandspurs alright! I've had my share of them in my bare feet. Not fun in the least. We don't have as many patches in our yard as we used to. Cary has about poisoned them all out. They're like fire ants. Kill one bed and they just move.
That looks painful and what our Texas cousins had in their yard years ago. Poor pups.
I bet that baby cried.
Bud in Fla
Veteran Member
Even worse, if you don't happen to carry a Leatherman, when you pinch a sandspur hard enough to pull it out, it usually sticks to your fingers! I never go barefoot outside and I always carry a Leatherman!
When I was a kid our dog got a sandspur in her eye. It was awful. We got it out for her but it took nearly a month for all of the irritation to go away.
AlaskaSue
North to the Future
Childhood in Duncan Oklahoma…we just called them stickers. Hated them so much. On hot summer days, after the county put tar and fresh gravel on our dirt road, my brothers and I walked on it and it sort of glued gravel to our feet. No shoes? No problem, and off we went. Just don’t fall….
I would do the same. When I was a kid, I had the toughest feet from going barefooted but I don't even go barefooted in the house now. We have several patches of those tiny stickers on our property so our kids never went barefooted here either.
A leatherman or a pair of pliars would be a must!
We were just down the road in Geronimo in 1969 - 71. That's where we lived the last time daddy was stationed at Ft. Sill.
Poor baby. I bet that hurt.
AlaskaSue
North to the Future
Aunts worked at Ft Sill.
We kids were there for raw red dirt roads 1957-67 when our 100 year old farmhouse burned to the ground. Gatlin Elementary, EP Halliburton was still living (and I met him). A very very different world then, sigh….
We went from there to Mississippi...total culture shock. Southern aristocracy or the delusion of it, hit me right in the face. I was use to most places loving military people. A few folks there, not all, considered us white trash.
Oklahoma was a different world and I still miss it.
feralferret
Veteran Member
My father grew up near Duncan. My great uncle was a machinist with Halliburton for over 40 years. I have more distant cousins around Duncan, Marlow, and Rush Springs than I can count.
ginnie6
Veteran Member
@Wildwood your garden is BEAUTIFUL! I would so watch a YouTube or instagram you did! Heck I'm as Southern as it gets so wouldn't bother me a bit. I used to love gardening barefoot, then the fire ants moved in. I hate those little (insert cuss word)!
We tried some black plastic one year to keep weeds down and I found that those hateful things loved being under it. Then when I walked on it they swarmed. Do they not like this fabric?
We are trying to switch over to mainly raised beds but still have an area dh has to plow up. I'd love to have mine look as good as yours!
I do have two of those rubbermaid stock tanks I'm going to pull over this year and use. I've heard I need to paint them white first so they won't hold heat.
We tried some black plastic one year to keep weeds down and I found that those hateful things loved being under it. Then when I walked on it they swarmed. Do they not like this fabric?
We are trying to switch over to mainly raised beds but still have an area dh has to plow up. I'd love to have mine look as good as yours!
I do have two of those rubbermaid stock tanks I'm going to pull over this year and use. I've heard I need to paint them white first so they won't hold heat.
I used that kind here in Georgia and it made a wonderful habitat for fire ants. I've gone back to the Back To Eden method.
Beautiful garden Wildwood, what part of the country are you in?
We called them sticker burs. They are the other reason Florida children don't walk barefoot. Fire cracker hot sidewalks are the other reason.
Thank you ginnie6! We got the fire ants a few years back too. They came in like gang busters at first but now they don't seem to be quite as bad...still, a handful of those things is too much. Cardboard was the thing I tried that seemed to attract them. The yellow corn meal is cheap, non-toxic and does keep them beat back enough for me. Between all the little sections of my garden, I usually use about 25 pounds a year on it. The first twenty goes in when I'm getting all my areas ready to plant and the last five is used for active nests of them throughout the summer. I've also use the borax and sugar method but the cornmeal is so much easier and it's cheap. I get the generic version and it has to be plain, with no salt.
The black stock tank might hold heat but I would probably paint it a light tan instead of white. I couldn't keep a white one clean lol.
ioujc
MARANTHA!! Even so, come LORD JESUS!!!
Wildwood.......that is BEAUTIFUL!!!
TRULY a TESTIMONY to your ability as a gardener!!!!
I bet you are GREEN even up to your ARMPITS!!!
LOVELY INDEED!!
I just now saw that you did this to inspire ME!!!! THANK YOU!!!! I am INDEED INSPIRED!! Thank you again!!! What a GOOD and LOVING thing you have done.....may our precious LORD BLESS you BEYOND MEASURE!!!
Last edited:
Thank you! I'm in western Arkansas in the Quachita mountains. I wanted Back to Eden so bad but it just wouldn't work here. The wood chips were no match to the the aggressive weeds in this area.
I keep the ants down to a tolerable level with yellow corn meal, the plain variety. It took a few years to really knock them back and I get a few here and there but I just add more corn meal. Ant bites do a number on me so I can't have many around.
ioujc, you are so sweet and what kind words. I am truly a novice. This method is kind of fool proof plus all those wonderful youtube gardners sharing their knowledge, tips and tricks is a huge help. I learn every single thing the hard way lol and then sometimes I forget and have to learn it all over again.
I do love Summerthyme's suggestion of a few raised beds to get you started. I have two raised beds behind this stuff and there are arched cattle panels going from one bed to the other. I have cucumbers and melons growing on those arches. One of the raised beds always has sweet potatoes and the other bed changes from one year to the next. I've done it with mostly tomatoes and last year I did it with all bell peppers, onions and leeks with big sweetheart cherry tomato plants in one end and cypress vines to make it pretty.
When I get it all cleaned up and ready to plant here soon, I'll post pictures of it all naked. I'm afraid I was going through major stress last fall and just walked away from all of it at the end of growing season and my son is helping me clean it up and rearrange a few of those front trellises. Right now it is a hot mess and I need to get my starts planted.
onmyown30
Veteran Member
I showed DH the pictures of your garden and he was so very impressed. We are still a work in progress for my small raised garden but he did ask me to get a roll of that garden weed barrier you posted and he is outside right now working with it and is Beyond Thrilled!! He loves it!! So much better than the stuff he did use last year. So much better he’s thinking of redoing the stuff he already did last year lol
I’m a little jealous that’s one gorgeous garden!! I always have such big plans for mine but then we go off somewhere and it grows so fast it’s hard to get it back under control when we come home.
I’m a little jealous that’s one gorgeous garden!! I always have such big plans for mine but then we go off somewhere and it grows so fast it’s hard to get it back under control when we come home.