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

jamibad wrote:
Here are some picture's of my mess! Now the clean up starts !
#1 DH and the dogs trying to get the water to drain to the back, this is a sloped area, but after I put in the garden, the water lays in the trenches. I also found out that the cedar tree at the far end of the garden had roots that were holding back the water too. So since we got everything dug up, we'll lay some pvc under the roots, hopefully it doesn't clog up once we fill the dirt back in. I know we need to use some kind of screen, but still trying to figure this out. Any idea's ?
#2 ugh, my corn is laying on the ground, drowned. The squash and beans in the background were a little wet where they were planted in the hill, the hills were higher than where I planted the corn, but here again the trench between them is filled with water. I hope I don't get end rot due to soggy roots.
#3 Trying to get the water to drain by using hose and some old pvc sprinkler piping. It worked a little bit, but really didn't do much good, as the water would just accumulate where it was coming out. It had no where to flow.
#4 & #5 Here's the problem. Tree roots from our cedar tree. My DH and I tried digging with a shovel, but all the roots under ground created a problem. I ended up getting pruners and cutting the roots as I dug with my hand shovel and hands, moving the dirt out from under the bigger roots we couldn't cut away. After 5 hours of digging 2 different trenches to the back woods, the water started really flowing out of the beds.

Today it is wet, but no standing water left! Talk about a muddy job. I wish I would have gotten picture's of myself when finished. I was mud from head to toes, soaked through to my skin from the rain as I dug. And boy, does my body hurt from being on my knees, digging with my hands. I swear that was the most physical work I've done in a long time. I don't ever want to do this again.