Container garden help!

[Anonymous]

I've posted here over the last few years to trouble shoot my container garden. I just cleared out my space for the season and want to start fresh next year.

I have a plain, flat yard that backs to the woods. Mostly unlandscaped, natural. Unfenced, and share the space with many critters.

I want to plant in containers to keep it simple. I need to fence it off to protect from critters. I've done so using landscape fabric on the ground, fence posts, and chicken wire.

The fence held up well this year, so that's a win! But weeds grow up through the landscape fabric, and also become overgrown around the perimeter and impossible to manage.

What can I do now to prepare, or in the spring to help keep it neat? I've saved some big cardboard boxes - should I line the ground with them now? What about the perimeter? Do I need to buy some kind of edging? What kind? Or is my whole system just not worth it? I just want a few containers of veggies and herbs! I feel like it shouldn't be that hard.

[Anonymous]

I’d mark off an area and lay down as many layers of cardboard as you can. Then put down a nice layer of woodchips or mulch next year to keep out the weeds.
I have my containers on a concrete pad that was the base for a big shed, so I don’t have to deal with weeds. But my neighbor does the cardboard method and it seems to work for her. I’ve seen many Instagrammers using Vego garden beds and they look great and neat but are very expensive.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I think the cardboard will help the main area. But what about the edges? That's the most unmanageable part.

[Anonymous]

I was eyeing the Vego, and would consider the splurge for one or two, but still maintaining the surrounding while fencing it in would still be tough. If I can get the area under control, id be more willing to splurge on the containers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. I think the cardboard will help the main area. But what about the edges? That's the most unmanageable part.

You can use cinder block for edging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was eyeing the Vego, and would consider the splurge for one or two, but still maintaining the surrounding while fencing it in would still be tough. If I can get the area under control, id be more willing to splurge on the containers!

I’ve been following @gingerfootgarden on Insta. She’s somewhere in Maryland and seems to have plunked a bunch of Vego beds into what looks like a townhouse backyard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks. I think the cardboard will help the main area. But what about the edges? That's the most unmanageable part.

You can use cinder block for edging.

Hm, that could work, and would be cheap. I was trying to hit that 2 billion jackpot so I could build one of those u-shaped gardens with an actual door for $2000-3000 Maybe one day I'll treat myself...