Earlier this year we terminated our Netflix and Paramount subscriptions and opted for BritBox. Shawn loves mysteries like Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I can’t stand the pompous twit (Poirot not Shawn), but she follows the plots so well she often predicts who done it before the final reveal. It’s impressive detective work. Our hands-down favorite though is Gardener’s World with Monty Don and friends, and we are gleaning so many new ideas for our garden. I keep a notepad and pen beside me as we watch.
We derive garden ideas from many sources including public display gardens, television broadcasts, web sites, and the old technology of books. Often an image or description is enough to trigger our discussion as we compile creative solutions for garden issues or embark on new arenas of garden discovery.
A couple of weeks ago I paged through a new book I borrowed from our library, The Urban Garden: 101 Ways to Grow Food and Beauty in the City (authors Kathy Jentz and Teri Speight), and examined a few of their ideas. This image of a DIY salad garden caught my eye, and I shared it with Shawn, along with my vision of where such a device might fit in our garden.
As an engineer I questioned the design’s stability based on the image. If the garden includes rambunctious children then this construction may be easily toppled. I also took issue with the author’s suggestion that materials like landscape fabric stretched across the bottom of the open frame would be strong enough to contain dirt season over season. Dirt is heavy. Wet dirt is heavier. I wouldn’t take a chance, but the idea has merit, and it triggered my creative juices. (I also loved the gutter garden detailed later in the book but, alas, my garden has no open wall for such a beautiful creation.)
Rabbits have invaded our garden. I’ve invested much sweat and big bucks in rabbit fencing to protect plantings, but the fur terrorists continue their destruction. A new plant baby is adopted, carried home, installed, watered, and next morning we find it has been gnawed to the ground or pulled out altogether.
And the rabbits are breeding like…rabbits. I completely understand Elmer Fudd’s heartbreak over Buggs Bunny’s carrot thievery and recognize that we were all brainwashed as children into thinking that rabbits are gentle creatures who deserve our love and admiration. Not in my garden fur bag! Scram!
One section of our vegetable garden required a twenty-four-inch fence to stop the stealing. The rabbits would take a run and scale anything shorter. I added a gate of sorts to make entry and exit easier for the aging gardeners though I prefer to step over the fence rather than use the gate. For some reason that fence disappears in my vision. I misjudge its position in relation to the toe of my number fourteen boot and have had a number of near-tumbles. And then one Saturday morning my favorite gardener, who is shorter than I am, tried to step over the fence rather than take the ten seconds to open the gate. Her shoestring hung on the fence, and she tumbled. Hard. Right into the garlic. Thankfully the soil provided a soft landing, and my human garlic press was uninjured.
I’ve hated that fence ever since and knew a change was need but what? The salad garden pictured above became the catalyst for our solution.
I designed a project. We cashed in credit card reward points and bought lumber. Some magic carpentry happened.
The neatly drawn plans become quite chaotic as we changed dimensions on the fly and adjusted the product. While Shawn tolerates the extra-high planting table in our compost area (designed for my 6’ 3” frame and long arms) she needed the Veggie Table to be comfortable for her. The height of the pot tops determined the length of the legs (35”).
I’ve included a few shots of the work as well as a video explaining more about the project
Drum roll and fanfare please.
Draw back the curtain and behold the latest DIY creation from John and Shawn, the gardening duo at Paths of Hope. We call it The Veggie Table.
I am omitting the boring carpentry details, but I will share that we used pressure treated dimension lumber in eight-foot lengths, and employed the chop saw for all the cuts except the fixed position shelves (explained later). Those had to be ripped on the table saw. Here’s my parts list, and be advised that the home centers think very highly of their lumber these days.
- Two 4 x 4 x 8’ legs
- Ten 5/4 x 6 x 8’ deck boards (Yes, I know I can get longer ones, but I do have to haul them to the shop.)
- Two 2 x 2 x 8’
- Two 1 x 2 x 8’
Some months back I shared our design for a No Dig Garden where we improved on the square foot gardening concept and adapted it for our garden. To date we have grown flowers in the square planter which has been relocated to a spot in dappled shade. The plant response to the conditions has astounded us. Look at the beauty displayed by Shawn’s coleus arrangement.
Why not use the same concept for a vegetable crop? And place the garden at a height that rabbits cannot reach? Would gardeners enjoy tending plantings that do not require squatting or bending?
In the vegetable bed where Shawn took her swan dive, I have uprooted hundreds of pounds of roots from the mature maple and pine that once ruled the spot, amended the soil with wheelbarrow loads of compost, cow manure, and leaf mulch yet we struggle to get much growing here. Part of the problem is a lack of sun. The backdrop fence hides the sun until noon, and the late afternoon sun drops behind a towering maple to the west.
We’ve successfully grown garlic, basal, a few tomatoes, and lettuce but the harvest could be improved. Shawn is ready to try something new.
I used the same twelve-inch square pots from Growco Indoor Garden Supply (SKU: giantSqPotB07) and designed for a two by six array. The Veggie Table has ample room for additional smaller pots at the sides and ends as needed.
I included two fixed shelves at the ends and used remnants of the lumber to create four movable shelves for Shawn to use as she sees fits. These will lift smaller pots (up to 1 gallon in size) so she can include starts and pot-ups in the garden. Reconfigurability and flexibility are key in the small garden.
The table itself is not easily moved. It’s heavy. On purpose. I don’t want a mid-season upset. The flooring is standard decking lumber and the weight of twelve pots filled with wet soil will not even challenge the load limits.
Here’s the blank canvas. Now we get to see what beautiful arrangements Shawn will paint with plants. I am giddy with excited anticipation.