Thursday, April 12, 2012

Raised Bed Garden

When we moved into our house I was excited to see the raised bed in the far back of our yard. Although the bed was very neglected (overgrown weeds and structure issues) I envisioned a bountiful harvest growing back there. Now six months later I am ready to set out and begin an edible garden. I was trying to figure out how I should go about fixing the structure issue and posted on one of my favorite home forums. I posted a few pictures and was told that the wood that the bed was constructed of are railroad ties and that it is not recommended. I googled and found a bunch of stuff that convinced me those have to go. The railsroad ties are treated with creosote and the EPA does not suggest using them. I have been doing a few searches on building raised bed and I am hoping to get my husband on board. I was  hoping to plant the few little plants that I purchased a few days ago but that will not happen. I will just have to keep those alive in the container long enough to plant in a few weeks. Through my research I have noticed that the typical width of a raised bed is between 3 to 4 feet in width and maybe around 8 feet in length. I plan on building 2 raised beds instead of the 1 large one that I currently have which measures 15x7. If things go well maybe more. I think this will make for a more comfortable gardening experience and will avoid having to walk on the soil. I would have loved to walk back there and just plant but it looks like I will need to really work at getting the area more suitable for a healthy garden. I am exited to see if my thumb is in fact green. Here are a few pictures of the garden as it stands right now. All the wood will need to be replaced but I haven't figured out with what just yet. You can see the previous home owners put concrete blocks and I did find some gardens that were constructed out of the concrete blocks. I also found plans on constructing them out of cedar fence pickets on Ana White's blog. Her cost ended up being $10, I like that dollar amount and I think my husband could get behind that. I looked up the pickets at my local stores and they are $2.05 vs. the $1.59 that she spent but still I think I could construct them for under $20 each. I am going to continue to research and will let you know! 




6 comments:

  1. Great space to grow! We built a two-tier wooden planter in out backyard and Missy loves to grow in it...Levi and Savannah love to help water and Levi even picks random leaves of Kale and Basil to chomp on.

    Hope your garden is working out for you. If you haven't already, be sure to put some sand in the base of it and some layment (like the black fabric type) underneath to help with Drainage and Weeds. You will be glad you did.

    Miss your family! Love your posts.
    I just bough a serene blue for the upstairs of our tanning salon, hoping to bring a yoga calm feeling to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. feeling great to see such kind of blogs. i like the content of this blogs.
    Suppliers of beds and mattresses

    ReplyDelete
  3. One of the producers "firm" mattress could in reality be firmer than another producer "extra firm" mattress. Seek for comfort and support. cheap truck mattress

    ReplyDelete

Comments make my day! Please leave a comment if you have a moment. I welcome tips, advice, and of course "great job" comments.