Aditi's Backyard 8x4 Vegetable garden

8′ × 4′ Raised Bed
1’ tall
Untreated Cedar Wood Border
Gets rising, afternoon, and early setting sun

This seemed like an ideal spot for a vegetable patch not only because of all the sunlight it gets, but because it can easily be viewed (/obsessed over) from the back door & the living room window. Its on a slight slope, which in my haste to get gardening, I didn’t really bother to fix. Rather than struggling to amend the clayey soil, I decided to build a raised bed and filled it with layers of newspaper & cardboard, peat moss, straw, cow manure, and compost. Unfortunately the compost, which came from the city’s recycle center, seems to be very lacking in nutrients and very abundant in sow & pill bugs.

The rollie pollies don’t cause much trouble most of the time (in fact, they’re probably helping since they mostly feed on decomposing matter), but I have found out the hard way that if there is moisture left on the bed when the sun sets, these night-crawlers will climb up on the plants by way of any leaves touching the ground and snack on the leaves. This isn’t a problem for well established plants, but can completely devastate seedlings. The fact that my garden has so many sow & pill bugs is probably just a good indicator that the compost isn’t fully decomposed to begin with. All in all they seem to be opportunistic creatures- usually only feeding on plants that are already under attack by some other pest, and most likely stressed or dying.

For me these other pests have been aphids and ants (who were probably farming the aphids). I did see some slugs making their way over to the bed one drizzly evening, but after sprinkling some coffee grounds over the mulch I haven’t seen any more signs of them. The coffee grounds seem to have reduced the number of ants marching around, but its really hard to say. Occasionally I sprinkle some crushed mint leaves around my plants to help. As for the aphids, I really haven’t done anything other than spraying some water (not even soapy water, as I didn’t want to harm any beneficial insects), but gave up on even that eventually. They have yet to get too far out of hand even though I have found them on the underside of the leaves of all 3 of my tomato plants and almost all of my pepper plants. I am hoping their natural predators as well as the occasional rain & thunderstorms will keep them in check.

Improvements for next year:

1. Improved, more balanced, nutrient-rich soil
   I’m hoping to accomplish this by adding better quality (homemade) compost and more humus to the soil.
2. A more balanced ecosystem
   I tried to employ some companion planting techniques when planning out the layout of the plants, but I didn’t really take other factors such as time into account. I want to continue to use companion planting techniques, but also combine them with principles of succession planting. Next year, I plan to not only plant more beneficial attracting plants in & around my vegetable beds, but also start them off early so that they’re already flowering & doing their job before trouble starts brewing.