The Pocono Garden

In our 2800 sq ft, Zone 5, Wayne County garden we currently have 13 raised planting beds of various sizes, 4 dwarf fruit trees, a small greenhouse with outside plant shelves and potting area, as well as sundry compost and storage areas. It is larger than some and smaller than others.

Here is the Pocono Garden on March 27, 2009.
What a mess with leaves and tools everywhere.

That dark bed in the very center was added this year. It is built from four, twenty year old 6x6" landscape timbers and four 2x6" boards of Douglas Fir.

Then, the timbers laid in the yard here for 2 or 3 years. I am confident that the majority of the chemicals have already leached out. I am not terribly worried about it, but I do plan on having the soil in the bed tested at the end of the year for cyanide, arsenic and whatever else might be there.

Douglas Fir is what we usually use to construct the raised beds. It is reasonably priced ($7 for a 10 foot long 2x6") and not pressure treated. The beds we put in 8 and 9 years ago show insect damage, but are still sturdy enough to stand on. I will need to replace a few of them in the next couple of years.

This is the Pocono garden on April 16, 2009.

As you can see the clean up continues. The leaves are now in piles and being transported to the compost bins in the left rear.

Cold Frame with Greenhouse Cover

May 1, 2009. The Pocono Garden is finally starting to get some real color.

The leaves have been picked up and what did not fit in the composters is used as mulch.

When I lived in Central NJ the squirrels would dig up the flowers in a new bed. So about every 6th plant I would put a moth ball, just under the surface of the soil. Squirrels hate moth balls. They would never bother those beds again, once they found their first moth ball. So after a few days I removed the moth balls from the beds, wearing gloves.

Do Not use mothballs in your vegetable or any other garden with edible plants. They are toxic. They contain naphthalene.

The reason people used to put them in with clothes was not because the smell drives the insects and moths away, like it does with squirrels. It is because naphthalene sublimes at room temperature. That means the moth balls change from a solid directly into a gas, no heating, no melting. When they do this they displace the oxygen from the space. The vapor can move into the clothes and suffocate insects that would otherwise be munching on Grandma's sweater.

If you are handling moth balls for whatever reason, always wear gloves.

It is cold and dry in your freezer. Modern freezers de-humidify the air to cut down on ice on the interior walls (frost free) and moisture on the exterior. The freezer doesn't know the difference between ice on the interior walls and ice in the tray.

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