How Does Your Garden Grow

I love gardening.  I enjoy nurturing little plants and helping them to grow.  I like talking to other gardeners, swapping tips and complaining about the weather or little garden pests.  I love the satisfaction that comes from picking a plump, juicy tomato from a plant that I started from just a little seed a few months ago.  Over the last few years my "garden" has been comprised of a series of containers filled with tomato plants, peppers, lettuces and herbs.  This year, I decided it was time to step it up a notch.  I wanted to build a raised garden bed so we could have a larger crop and have more variety.

I did some research online to figure out how to go about building a raised garden bed.  After getting an idea of what I wanted I went to Lowes for supplies.  I decided on a 8'x4' garden.  I want to start out small and see how this first year goes. There's always room for expansion!   At Lowes I bought four 2x8x12 and had them cut them so I had four 8 foot pieces and four 4 foot pieces.  I also bought pre-made 30" wooden stakes.

Then assembly began. 

Materials laid out

 Forgive me for not taking a lot of photos during assembly.  We were on a mission and it went pretty quickly. Actually, Luke was on a mission and once he has a task that guy just GOES!  We laid the boards out on a flat surface, overlapped the edges and used wood screws to put them together.  Once we had the two layers screwed together we attached the wooden stakes in the corners with screws. 

Raised bed box laying upside down

This photo lets you see the garden box after it was assembled.  Pretty simple.  We then dug about a 3 inch deep trench that the box would sit in so it had good contact with the earth to help prevent shifting and soil loss through the bottom.   

Before we drove the stakes in

 After the trench was dug we set the box in with the stakes down and used a mallet to pound them into the ground.

View of the stakes attached to the garden box 

Once the garden box was in we back filled any gaps with soil.  I used a shovel to remove the top inch or so of turf from the inside of the box so there was no grass (or clover)  remaining on the inside then tilled and leveled the soil.  We had some landscaping rock we had been wanting to get out of a flower bed so I transferred it over the to garden and covered the base with about 2 inches of rock to help with drainage.   On top of the rock went landscaping fabric and then I filled the box with topsoil we had delivered from a local supplier.  I also mixed in a few bags of organic compost from Lowes.

And.......the end result:

 We had to add chicken wire around the outside to keep those hungry little rabbits (and dogs!) out.  It's worked like a charm so far.

 

I've planted beef steak and rainbow heirloom tomatoes, green bell and purple bell peppers, a spring lettuce mix, brussel sprouts, zucchini and cucumber.  All plants seem to be thriving and we've already enjoyed lots of fresh lettuce.  There aren't many things more gratifying than providing your own food.

 And since we are making more attempts at being green, Luke made a rain barrel from a trash can we had sitting in our garage not being used.  I absolutely love it.  Maybe even more than the garden itself.  My crunchy side rejoices each time I water all our plants without spending a penny.  It feels great to conserve resources and money!   If you are a gardener and you don't have a rain barrel, you're doing it wrong. 

 This is our container herb garden.  We have parsley, dill, sage, rosemary, lavender, basil, mint, lemon balm, cilantro, oregano and Buddha.  I don't believe in the teachings of Buddha, but I do enjoy his head :)  The next item on my gardening agenda is to start composting but I'll get to that another day. 

I am soooo looking forward to that first tomato from our garden.  There's just nothing like homegrown.