5 Things To Preparing & Building Your Own DIY Home Garden Bed

A Do It Yourself (DIY) home garden bed does require a lot of attention. It involves a lot of time and effort to prepare a new garden bed before actually planting flowers, vegetables or flower bulbs. The following 5 guidelines may help in preparing the new garden bed.

1) Water irrigation system.

Those planning a drip irrigation system for his garden should lay it in the beginning itself under the ‘weed block’. A few drip irrigation systems have built-in emitters with a gap of 6 inches to 12 inches between them.

Alternatively, the garden plan may consist of having a quarter inch hose and fix the emitters at specific distances. If the plan is to have the emitters fixed on the hose, garden layout should be such that the plants are on top of the soil so that the emitters are fixed properly.

On the other hand, if the proposal is to have the irrigation system on top of the weed block, it is better to wait till planting job is completed.

2) Blocking weed growth.

Weed blocks are meant to keep the weeds from growing. However, in order to be effective, they have to be properly installed. Weed blocks keep the garden clean and beautiful.

Weed blocks are of different types and sizes. Most garden nurseries will keep cloth or paper weed blocks in different lengths and widths. One can even use newspapers or corrugated boxes for making weed blocks. If newspapers are used for weed blocks, it is better not to use colored ink or glossy magazine paper.

Although heavy coating of mulch will also prevent weeds to grow, they will not be as effective as a strip of weed block material. The weed block should cover the entire area where plants are proposed to be laid out. As there should not be any gaps between weed blocks, if more than one trip is used, the edges should overlap a few inches.

One end of the strip should be secured by burying it a few inches into the ground and the weed block should be stretched so that it is tight. Similarly the other end also should be fixed properly.

3) Laying out the plants.

Garden enthusiasts follow different methods to grow plants in their garden. While some people buy the plants, others sow the seeds first at home and some others use flower bulbs. Whatever be the approach place them on top of the weed block.

If the proposal is to sow the seeds, they should be first sown in empty pots. While planting make an X mark in the weed block at the each spot of plant or bulb. It should be ensured that the hose pipe placed under the weed block for drip irrigation system is not cut by mistake. The X mark should be sufficiently big for proper setting of the plants Instructions are available specifying planting depth.

One should plant flower bulbs with the tip facing up. It is better to place a few markers to identify plants and flower bulbs In order to ensure that bulbs are not pulled out by mistake while taking out weeds, the folding of X mark in the weed block close to the plants is recommended.

4) Preparing mulch.

After ensuring that planting is complete as planned and are at the proper height, the next step in gardening is to add ‘mulch’ around the plants’ roots to enrich soil. Mulch should be put round the plants at 2 inches to 4 inches depth. There are different types of mulch, like compost, wood chips or bark, leaves and shredded leaves.

5) Watering the plants.

It is necessary to water the plants once again after initial watering at the time they were planted, particularly when compost is used as mulch. One should water the plants minimum once daily for the first few weeks until the plants have grown a little.

In this respect, a timer will be very useful. It will be helpful to use a timer on the drip irrigation system. Timer can be set to water the plants at a particular time for a specific duration depending upon the type of emitters used and the quantity of water the plants require.