The Best Size to Make Your Garden Beds + a Spring Bouquet demo

LaRonda goes for a quick forage on her morning walk and makes a bouquet with her findings. Then the two sisters sit down to chat about what size garden beds are the best. Join us for another flower and gardening video.

WEBSITE: https://www.rootdesignfloral.com/
CLASSES: https://www.rootdesignfloral.com/shop/

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER: https://mailchi.mp/964d6efc0e75/emailsignup

SMALL GREEN GARDEN STAKES: https://amzn.to/3QiIBmc
BLACK PLASTIC FENCE POSTS: https://amzn.to/3JARkfN
FAVORITE GARDENING GLOVES: https://amzn.to/3UnxPwm
*affiliate

[Music]
you done
B
[Music]
for for
[Music]
for
[Music]
what size garden beds should I make
that’s a question we’ve gotten a lot
over the years and as we were setting up
our Gardens last year it’s a decision we
had to make all over again so today
we’re going to talk through a few things
you might want to consider so you can
lay out your garden as efficiently as
possible we’ll talk through bed and path
sizes and we’ll also get into a little
bit of staking at the end what we
currently do to stake our flowers and
maybe what we’ve done in the past so if
this interests you stick around for a
few more
[Music]
minutes so when I set up my garden I I
knew that I wanted about 4ot wide beds
for several reasons um we have some low
tunnel hoops and those can be used for
season extension for your crops and I
also use them to attach my netting to
those are all 4T wide I just wanted to
be able to easily move my beds around so
let’s say I’m growing ronculus in one
bed one year I want to be able to move
it to the next one like do crop rotation
easily I wanted everything kind of the
same size I went with about 15t long
beds I just like things broken up a
little bit more looking back I could
probably just have done like a 30ft row
instead of 2 15s but I want my garden to
have a little more of a Cottage Garden
feeling like I don’t want it to be this
overwhelming Cut Flower Garden that’s
the benefit of shorter rows I think is
is less overwhelming like that’s the
thing I liked in our old Garden is you
could just whip through a bed and either
mulch it or weed it or plant it and it
wasn’t just this like 100ft row that you
were sitting down it’s a mental thing
it’s less efficient to have more beds I
have that middle path down the down the
center of my garden which takes up space
mentally it’s a good break for me to
know it’s just a smaller bed I can
manage in a night or something the other
thing to think about is moving through
the garden so if you’re if you have a
wheelbarrow I like to be able to cut you
know not have to go all the way to the
end of a a 50ft row and turn around I
like to be able to cut through the
garden right that’s partly why we also
do smaller shorter beds yeah my
perennial beds those are actually 3ot
wide because I knew I’d never be putting
my um my annuals in them and so they
could be a little bit narrower and those
are I have little Pathways between some
of them you know here and there where I
can cut across because I want the look
of a long one long border but I don’t
want to like you said have to go all the
way around so that’s something else you
can do if you’ve got a bed you can just
lay a couple stones or bricks or
something to get through a little
walking path through it that’s really
smart so in my garden then I kind of did
the opposite of what you did I have I
have one bed that’s 4 foot um because we
had that that’s the size of the hoop
vender um and that’s just because I
wasn’t planning to grow a lot of crops
every year that I need to extend the
season on so I have two at the the head
of the garden that are 4T and then the
one Wiest bed after that is a 28 in bed
I think and the narrowest one is about a
21 in I made two narrow of beds and two
narrow pads last year so I took up half
the garden and resized it I made wider
pads mostly and then a little bit wider
beds too I just took out a whole bed and
I like that a lot better I think the
ideal size for me for what I wanted to
do is about a 28 in bed and that’s I can
reach both sides of the bed from one I
don’t have to go around and get to the
other side so I can weed I can plant I
can you know tend the bed from one side
I don’t know why that was a big deal but
it just feels like less work if you can
do it all from one
side you probably have memories of our
old Garden nearly falling into the
center of the bed when yeah you almost
tip into the center of a really yeah the
beds sometimes feel too wide when you’re
cutting into them too then the 21in bed
was too narrow I had planted that for
single row dalas I moved my dalas to a
new spot and it’s just it’s too near I
planted zenos in them the other night
and and I can only get about two rows of
zenas in that whole bed so it’s not very
efficient I have more path than Garden
right now I do have different types of
beds in my garden like some are
dedicated just to to dalas and those are
not 4ot wide those are anywhere from 20
to 22 in somewhere in there just just
under 2 feet wide um for my dalas and I
just planted them single row I’ve got
about six rows so those bed sizes are
different than all the other sizes in my
garden one other thing I do take into
consideration is what am I netting what
I mean by netting is the hortonova
netting that is a plant support you
fasten it horizontally and then your
plants grow up through it and it helps
to keep plants upright you can buy 3ft
wide and 4ft wide netting so if you want
to be efficient with that you could plan
your beds according to that if you know
you’re going to be using Hova netting
something that we’ve done for narrower
beds then is just cut the 4 foot netting
in half right and that does a narrow bed
fairly well um but like do is right so
like for a 28 in bed I’d probably just
get the 3ot and leave that just use the
whole 3ot with or if you’re like off the
sides I do yeah you know one thing to
consider is how many plants you can get
in a bed and that may take a little bit
of trial and error how much it was
usually five five five spacing right
that we did on well we often well we
tried we didn’t always stick to this but
when I planned them I would plan for 6
in 9 in or 12 in spacing for a lot of
things and so if you go with a 36 you
can easily divide that by 6 9 or 12 48 N
is a little off for that one your plant
spacing might help determine your bed
size I don’t plant my plants out to the
very edge of the bed I learned that
lesson last year I tried to cram them
really full I thought this is going to
be good well it would have maybe been
okay but I didn’t stake anything so it
was just a jungle like there was there
was no P things just fell out into the
pathway I leave about usually a 5 to 6
in gap on the side of the bed so you
don’t get the whole bed to plant in I do
the opposite and then I stake it and
hope for the
best do you not have any flop into the
rose um they didn’t too bad last year no
okay I think I kept them cut pretty good
there was one time in the middle of the
Summer where I had to go through and
trim things up a little it did get a
little hairy and my tomato section I
planted them way too close together and
didn’t stake them properly and so
that is something I am not doing this
year either I’m planting fewer tomatoes
and giving them a little more room yes
planting more plants doesn’t necessarily
give you more Tomatoes per square foot
right it might actually work the
opposite way just take really good care
of a few plants and you’ll be fine which
in other news I saved a bunch of seed
and I planted them put I put them in
soil blocks and none of them came up for
a week but they’re all up now okay mine
took a little while to come up too
speaking about staking or not planting
your things out to the edge I tend to
like wider Pathways then I like a 3ft
wide path because if I do plant all of
my beds right up to the edge I’ve got
still a little bit of room even if they
come into the path a little bit but I do
use a wheelbarrow if I’m you know
mulching stuff or if I’m weeding even so
I need to be able to get around my
garden easily another reason I like a
three- foot wide path is because there
is better air flow two foot would be
okay in a lot of situations but here in
Ohio we have such humid Summers and we
can get such a problem with mildew I
like to give as much opportunity for the
air to flow through the garden as I can
just so that the plants dry off and
aren’t so susceptible to disease and I
have what I’ve started to do is you know
we buy that the path the row cover in 36
in width I’ve started holding it back 8
in under so it’s a 28 in wide strip that
just gives me a little bit more bed size
um right but that I can get a willb
through that yet too so you can probably
bring it down a little bit if you need
to mhm if you if you’re not so worried
about dampness and Milo and whatnot but
most of my pads are 28 in there’s the
ones that dissect the garden are 36 so
for staking do you have mostly uh toost
in your garden I have toost for my dalas
then I also have I used the Hoops last
year for like I just fastened The
netting foot off the ground up the hoop
and that worked okay I did also get a
few of those like green um Garden steaks
they’re like what 5 foot long you get
them at lows or those work okay I
chopped them up thought about those yeah
they worked fine I used them they’re
stable in the garden they don’t wobble
too much yeah they you just have to give
yourself plenty of space like you want
to pound them in pretty good but we have
clay soil and that’s one beauty of clay
soil is that it hangs on to stuff wood
staks I like the look of those better
but they they end up breaking off by the
end of the season sometimes I had got
some some fence posts at Tractor Supply
last year to do and they actually worked
pretty good as long as the netting was
low on them they’re they’re plastic so
the higher up the netting goes the more
it pulls them in and kind of pulls oh I
see my’s been trying to help me
troubleshoot that one and he actually
he’s making little wooden pieces to
stabilize them you know how we used to
put across the toost I think I’m going
to get toost to put on the end of all my
rows so four for each bed and then in
the middle to kind of support the
netting I’ll use those fence post but
those were a good idea but they didn’t
end up working very well yeah probably
because we have sandy soil and they can
tend to move a little bit sure you might
see some real sketchy looking POS pop up
in the
garden resourceful here yeah hey that’s
you have to be resourceful if you’re a
gardener you don’t always have all the
money you want to use and I me posts are
expensive I mean if you get I mean I
don’t know how many hundreds we have
spent on coasts throughout the years
like you just you think you have enough
and then oh no we you can another 20
this year yeah the good thing is they
last for a long time so right it’s worth
the
investment I don’t know how to end it I
don’t know either let’s just go dreamily
off into the
distance I’ll just sort of fade the
talking out just like the music up
[Music]
I think it’s a great idea guarantee that
they
[Music]
change.com
[Music]
ch
[Music]