My new raised bed :)

This is my first attempt at vegetable gardening (other than helping my mom as a kid). I'm really excited!

My bed is 3' x 12' and 1' tall. The wood is cedar. The grid (square foot gardening) is just nylon string from Home Depot. We set nails every foot and tied the string to each of the nails and then hammered the nails in to hold the string nice and snug and then trimmed off the excess string. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. We only had one minor mishap while building. One of the beds was almost full of nice fluffy dirt when our 7 month old golden retriever decided to jump INTO the bed and chase the rake I was using! This caused one of the 12' boards to bow out a lot, so we had to move all the dirt from the board and hammer in some support stakes. Needless to say I get quite nervous now when the dog is anywhere near the beds. We'll probably end up putting a small fence around both beds.

It took us all weekend to install the beds, so we just finished everything last night. This is what I put into the bed today:
brown & red bell peppers (seeds)
tarragon (plant)
marjoram (plant)
oregano (plant)
cumin (seeds)
thyme (seeds)
watermelon (seeds)
marigold & nasturtium (seeds)
broccoli (seeds)
lavender (plant)
3 types of mint: spearmint, chocolate, and pipeapple (plants)
bunching onions (seeds)
rosemary (plant)
sage (plant)
chives (plant)
borage (seeds)
basil (plant)
parsley (plant)

This is what I'm adding to the beds in Sept. and Oct.:
leeks, garlic, cucumber, kale, cauliflower, snow peas, spinach, carrots, red & golden beets, cabbage, lettuce, & tomatoes.

I'll post updates when things start happening :)

My husband with the culprit :)

Looks good! If your interested, I get good results with Dr. Earth organic fertilizer, which I use as a foliar and tea to make it economical. My dog use to dig, until I got another dog, so they burn their energy with each other. Ann

Looks great, you are off to a terrific start!
BDale

They are lovely. May they bring you years of enjoyment - and many yummy returns!

Nice clean corner joints. Can't make out what you did however. Have a close up of the joints?

looking great

David-
All we did was nail the shorter board to the longer board. No supports or brackets in the corners. We did put supports in along all the sides on the inside of the bed. We used wooden stakes and hammered them into the ground along the inside walls until they were about 2 inches below the top of the bed's walls. Then we hammered nails from the outside of the beds to the stakes on the inside.

Hi passiflora,

Your beds look great!

I also use the square foot gardening method and raised beds. The pictures are of my 12 X 4 beds. I also have several 4X4 and am in the process of building a 4X10 for fall planting of onions and garlic and shallots.

Here are a couple of pictures of my beds to let you know what you have to look forward to. First picture taken at the end of May this year, second picture taken at the end of July.

A word of caution on the Borage. I love the plant, but given the favorable soil conditions in a raised bed it will grow HUGE. I planted mine among my tomatoes, much too close together. The will spread to 3-4 feet given the room, so next year I will plan accordingly. This year I ended up having to remove some of them because I only gave them a foot or so of space per plant. The pollinators DO love this plant, and I will always plant it for that reason + the blue flowers are pretty and edible (taste is a bit like cucumber)

I would recommend putting brackets on the corners of your bed. You can easily do this now, when they are in place. I think it would greatly improve durability.



This message was edited Aug 14, 2007 2:44 PM

late july

Holy crops, essentialplanet! What a jungle--looks impressively wonderful!

essentialplanet-
Wow! That is amazing! You don't know how excited I am now!! Great job!
Are the black buckets around for collecting rainwater? If not, what are they for?

ep, your raised beds are a wonderful jungle. I have used raised beds for many years, never looked as prolific as yours. Now i have to find another place for them as the trees have grown too tall and cause too much shade for most veggies. Will use at least one of the three raised bed areas now for hosta as there is enough shade for them to grow well.

Donna S

Passiflora: The black buckets are for water, though there is not enough rain to collect in them. Early in the season, I water the new seedlings by hand, they like the water that has been sitting out and warming up, it does not shock them like the cold water from the hose.

Now I just water my potted plants from the buckets. I am thinking of using a soaker hose for the beds next year. How are you watering your beds?

Donna: That's a bummer to have the bed areas you have been using shaded too much! Do you have enough space that you can move them to a sunny location?

We actually took down three trees this spring because we want to grow edible plants. We are going to replace them with dwarf fruit trees and berry bushes.

Yes, I have enough space, question is, Do I have enough energy to move them. Guess I could just have the fellow who works for me make different ones, My three are pretty ancient, two of them are at least 20 years old. I have more than 2 acres of land inside my wooden fence ( to keep deer out and birds in). I do run short of water tho.

ep--
I have (very) raised beds (2 1/2 feet up, made of masonry block) that are on the bubbler system the landscaper who installed everything told me I needed. I didn't know anything about anything when I started, only that if my watering wasn't on a timer and my beds weren't irrigated, everything would die, so that's what I did. What a bad choice. The water ponds and puddles, and the stuff at the edges doesn't get wet so the space is useless. I'm doing a sort of modified half-a**ed square foot method, and so I'm in the process of converting one bed to individual drips for larger plants, and the other to soaker hose for the smaller things in rows. Having it all automated, though, is a wonderful thing!