Fun Cheap and Easy Practical Outdoor Gardening Ideas

Not all gardening has to be complicated and a lot a work. Some are just a matter of adding dirt to the right container.   Recently, I setup a potato garden for my ever-growing vegetable garden.

Here’s what I did this weekend. If you have read my blog for a while, you know I dismantled my garden last year and replaced it with this one.  Well, we decided to expand our garden because we really enjoyed having fresh veggies over the summer.  Our addition this year is our potato and string bean garden.  While doing research, I found it important to not certain veggies together in the same garden and some veggies complement each other.  For example potato and string beans complement each other. And, since we love string beans, we wanted to make more of them. So we moved the string beans out of the three-tier garden into a garden bag.  Here is the link so you can check out the different veggies the complement each other.

If you want to see how we set up the raised bed garden, here’s the link to the post.

If you are wondering what a garden bag is, well I found it at Gardeners.com. (not an affiliate)  It is  made of BPA-free polypropylene, measures 50″ in diameter x 12″ deep, holds 400 quarts (13.7 cubic feet) of planting mix, and made in the USA.  It’s quite affordable too and is delivered folded up so doesn’t cost a lot to ship.

Here is how I set this up this outdoor gardening for small spaces.

First, I added dirt to the center.  We used garden soil (which I bought extra-large bags at the wholesale store). To change the dirt in the three tier garden, we took some of that soil and transferred it into the center of this bag after we laid it out.

I then kept adding the soil until it was a little more than halfway full because I needed to have room to make a ditch.

But it turns out that the circle ditch idea wasn’t going to work because I wouldn’t have enough room for the string beans. So, I changed the configuration of the potatoes and started all over again.  The instructions for the red potatoes said that I needed to make a ditch, then add compost into the ditch and then the potatoes, and more dirt to cover the potatoes, then add more dirt every few weeks while it grows so I needed to be able to have a lower level of dirt on one side so I could add to it. Here’s what I have now.

Now the potatoes are to the right and the string beans are to the left. It works a lot better now.  I was able to put more string beans into the bag this way.  Plus, the string beans instructions said it needed a lattice and was able to add two smaller lattices so I can use it on both sides. Hopefully, it will hold the weight of all the string beans.

Here is the finished garden. You can’t really tell, but the right side is lower than the left side.  The bag held together pretty well and I’m hoping it will grow potatoes. Only time will tell.

Here are both gardens.  It took the entire day on Saturday and part of Sunday but it’s finally done.  You can’t see it in the picture but we have hanging baskets for strawberries this year. I never grew them before.  Hopefully, they will do well in the baskets.  What do you think?

Raised bed garden this year consists of two types of lettuce, kale, spinach, swiss chard, broccoli, and beefsteak tomato. In the pots in the back, there are spearmint and flowers.

Do you have a vegetable garden?  What is your favorite vegetable to grow?  Please leave a comment below.  I would love to hear from you. 

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