Hand Dug Garden
We were like most country folks, we wanted a nice big garden that produced great and didn’t take all your time to tend. Since a good producing garden requires good soil, we chose a spot in the bottom by the creek where an old barn stood not too far from the house. The spot seemed ideal with plenty of rich soil, no rocks to pick out, and close to a water source. Water was dipped out of the creek into a 55 gallon barrel placed next to the garden for watering during dry spells.
My closest neighbor, a mile away, offered to plow the prospective garden patch with his mule team. We welcomed the help and looked forward to seeing work animals in action. Well, time went on and the neighbor and mules never did show, so the decision was made to use some gardening methods that were gaining recognition: wide row/no till gardens.
We began by marking the ground off for the wide beds and proceeded to dig only where we wanted to plant. The soil was dug and turned over by hand with a spade shovel and hoe. The space between the beds were left untouched, as to let grass and weeds grow to be mowed down. This method proved a good design since we were able to walk through the garden and pick our bounties without compacting the garden soil or getting muddy. Also, precious compost could be used on the garden and not wasted on the mowing areas. The beds ranged from 3 to 12 feet wide depending on what would be planted in them. All beds ran about 30 feet long which was the length of the bottom land between the hill and creek allowing room for paths along both edges. The largest beds were for corn, potatoes, beans, and tomatoes. Narrower beds were for cabbage, peppers, broccoli, carrots, onions, peas, and lettuce.
The garden was not fenced, as we had two big dogs, mother and son, who had free run of the place and kept all critters out of the area. The dogs were especially hard on the groundhogs. When the corn was close to getting ready to pick, Momma dog remained free since she was the main hunter, while her son was tied to a dog house by the garden. He would bark if he heard or saw anything and Momma was right after it. With this arrangement no veggies were ever lost to predators; only heavy rains beat the corn down a few times.
Using this method we had a bountiful garden that was easy to maintain.
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