Florida Gardening: My first raised bed garden for vegtables, 1 by jamibad

jamibad wrote:
I've done container gardening, and did well with that, but found that keeping everything moist through our hot summer time temps, when everything is starting to mature, was very time consuming. We've since moved to a bigger home, with an awesome yard and decided to graduate to raised beds. Here are some pictures of my container garden, in a small 5' x 15' yard to a very large yard. The difference is I have a lot of room, so I made 3 beds, 3' x 9' each, enclosed with a 4' fence, and than we closed off an end section of yard with a chain link fence. Our yard borders a sanctuary for wild life, like in deer, and other critters, so protecting our groceries was very important, with out harming the animals who also need a place to live, but not be able to feast on a smorgasbord of our labor. This is my first attempt at raised beds, and I decided it couldn't be much different than containers. My problem with the smaller yard, and containers, were a lot of my cucumbers and squash developed a mold, after looking it up, my pots were sitting to close together, due to the limited space, and couldn't get enough air circulation, lesson learned, but a little late for the crop. This time I have a lot of space and able to use all my pots, in addition to the raised beds, and than the other side which is fenced in will be for corn, watermelons, and some cucumbers! I also am planting cantaloups, but haven't researched where to put them, am hoping to be able to plant in and around the corn, cukes, and watermelon. This is a first for me, and I'm open for suggestions, I know I've already started, my soil is good, but any advise is good advise, as I learn from it! As i progress with my garden, I know I'll have questions, and maybe need some guidance, but here is the start, and as "my garden grows" I'll continue to give updates on here. As I said, I did containers last year, the first time I grew anything, and this year I've decided I want to give it my all. I'm disabled, and this is a hobby for me, I don't want to sit and watch TV for the rest of my life, I love the out doors, and intend on doing what I can for as long as I can. The first picture's are of the container garden, and than I'll post picture's of the new garden in the next post! Give me some feed back if you have any, I know that I don't have all the answers, but in the next few post's I'll will ID what I have in each bed, and any other plantings I put in.