Hey Sandra, First an foremost, i feel for you, I was in your same shoes, just moved in my house a few years ago.. It's tough and very mind tiring, but hang in there, the fruits of your labor is well worth it.. Just teaching the kiddos, and spending time with them is priceless! You mentioned no till lasanga gardening.. I do no till and It works very very well! Some will tell you it's hogwash, and every situation calls for offstage measures, which is true, but you can almost always do a small garden no till without to many problems.. I think your off to a good start right there my friend! Don't worry about not planning ahead to much, you still have a few weeks to plan.. You can almost plan to much! Trust me, I'm a perfectionist and I get so carried away in plant spacing for maximum yield,etc, i let the whole growing season go by.. It's better off just putting plants in and learning as it progresses, instead of not growing anything at all.. Your concerned about cross pollination.. I assume your growing heirlooms and trying to save seed.. You really don't have to much to worry about for cross pollination.. Just bag the flowers before they open to ensure isolation of pollen... I do something very similar tonkasanga gardening, but I don't actually layer it up to compost, I actually unfinished compost, then just some mulch.. Here's what I do, -cardboard the grass -pile compost/soil on the cardboard -mulch -plant Don't get to overwhelmed, worst comes timeless just throw some seeds down, any gardens better than none! Please, take it easy, you probably got enough work with the new house.. Don't worry to much... Gardening should be a fun hobby, not a chore. Joe

Hi Wildflowerchris, welcome to the group. "Pressure treated wood is out of the question. However i want to use "rot resistant wood." A few things to consider, pressure treated wood is not made with arsenic anymore (at least the wood you buy at home improvement centers) instead it has chemicals that are much less harmful to humans. On simple rectangular beds it is quite easy to add a liner to help keep the chemicals in the PT wood from leaching into the garden soil. The liner will also help make the wood last longer by keeping the moist soil from contacting the wood. Two of the best liners I have found are Tri Flex roofing underlayment (comes in a big 40 inch wide roll that is about 400 feet long) very tough but expensive (about $45 per roll). If you where making a lot of raised beds it would be cost effective. Another liner that may work well is plastic roof valley liner. I think it comes in 24 or maybe 18 inch rolls that are about 50 feet long. Another option might be landscape stones. Would look very nice and never rot but would require making a base (a lot of work) and would cost more then wood. Good luck on your project and I look forward to seeing pictures of it. DC

What are you going to edge the beds with? This will make a huge difference. If you are going to use something like bricks, railroad ties, etc to edge your bed, you won't need any type of barrier along the bottom of the bed to keep the grass from growing. Lining the side of the bed with some type of barrier might not be a bad idea. Grass will not grow up through a foot of soil piled on top of it. The landscape fabric won't be necessary and could be a real problem later on. The only thing that the fabric does is eliminate the light getting to the grass. A foot of soil will do that job much better. Once weeds or grass do grow through landscaping fabric (which they seem to do with great ease), you have a huge mess on your hands. I would also NOT use the gravel layer! I can't think of any benefit to a gravel layer, but do see some serious problems with it. The biggest problem is that it will be a barrier to proper drainage and water movement in the soil. Another issue is that it will be a partial barrier to root growth especially if you grow trees, shrubs, or plants with long taproots. I think this is a case where simpler is much better. If you are using a border, just fill it in with soil. Ideally, I would break up the surface (just a little, a lot is not necessary) before adding soil. A shovel, mattock, or fork and just a couple of minutes should be enough. This will encourage better drainage and root growth by reducing the surface barrier at that point. If you give earthworms a decent start at breaking this barrier, they will gladly complete the task for you over a period of time.

Hello. You didn't say whether this is a new home for you. I spent the first year checking out the sunshine in our backyard. My backyard was a south facing yard. The back fence shaded the back yard almost 4 feet into the yard. Which meant I started my first cinder block line just over 4 feet away from the block fence. OR the winter garden would never get any sun. During the summer time, the block fence might radiate too much heat back off the fence. My cinder block garden was 3 cinder blocks tall. 24 inches interior width. I started with 1 brick high. I found the roots didn't have enough room. So I went up to 2 bricks. Again, not tall enough for tomato plants if you bury your seedlings deep like many recommend. So, I went up to 3 bricks high. Perfect for me. I agree with previous posters. If you make the garden too wide, you won't be able to reach all sides of the garden. Important when you are trying to find the peas within the vines, tomatoes under their leaves, or to pull radishes that are ready for your salad. I put the blocks right on the hard AZ soil. I then added mulch, mulch, soil, manure, mulch, manure.... It took almost 3 years to get the perfectly blended soil for all sorts of vege's. Shoveling, raking, and spreading more manure did the trick. I mulched all my kitchen scraps I could. That certainly helped with the health of the soil. Oh by the way, the soil won't bulge out or push the bricks away. At least in my case. Any extra water leaked between some of the cracks and down to the bottom of the bricks. Making sure you have enough water to absorb into the soil so your plants have a chance to drink before it runs out at the bottom. Good luck!!