Raised Garden Beds

In my last post I shared about Garden/Backyard Planning.  I mentioned how it takes time.

Planning also has to do with learning what works for your yard and how you want to do things.

I had a big problem on my hands.  I tried growing a garden the traditional way with just rotter tiling a section of our yard.  We had issue after issue with doing this.  Yes, I borrowed my parents machine from their acreage.

I was HOPING have the dirt rotated with a good machine would help. It didn’t.

My husband and I like to keep things fairly neat, tidy and organized.  I will admit not everything is, but when it came to the outside having clean lines it looks great. Considering invasive plants, potatoes growing rampant and loads of rocks we decided last year to put in Raised Garden Beds.

Worth all the hard work that went into making them.

Here’s a snapshot of the garden BEFORE we did the Raised Garden Beds.

I shudder looking back at this. You can see if you zoom in, I have a few things planted BUT, the weeds and such would not stop persisting.

This decision was the best one we made for this area of our city lot.

Here’s the beginnings of the Raised Garden Beds.

These did not take long to make.  Our middle son jumped right into it and helped us out.  I have to admit, my husband did most of the work.  I helped load the wood. I don’t have the dimensions at this moment, I’ll edit this post and add it back in later.

2 truck loads of a Garden Blend, filled the boxes up just right. I was off the start my planting for the season.

This was one project we didn’t research, and just went with it. Here’s a recap of how our Raised Garden did last year.

Here’s the list of positives for having Raised Beds:

• Required less work – Beds has less weeds and where easy to reach to get the ones that did grow.
• Needed less watering – They act like GIANT flower pots. I noticed our water bill went DOWN during the summer.  Saving money and growing our own food, yes please.
• Easy to mow around – My husband loved this.
• Look Great – Nice simple lines and when they were ready for harvest the looked full and amazing.
• Kids didn’t run through and destroy the plants – this happened in the previous garden LOTS.  Now we have a puppy to train to just go into the boxes.

Negative:

• It is great for just about all our growing needs for a Garden.  BUT, not running plants like zucchini or squash.
• I missed growing certain plants that didn’t “fit” this style of gardening.

I’m excited for another year with my Raised Garden Beds. Hoping the deer stay away from my pole beans.  I think our Dog might help keep them away this year.  I don’t like planting them 3 times. Somehow I need to keep the animals away from my strawberries too.

I honestly feel like I’m still a beginner gardener and have lots to learn.  I hope seeing that we built was helpful for your garden.  If you have any questions on what I shared feel free to comment below.

Happy Gardening.