Courtesy of my wonderful husband, we are now two thirds done with my new raised garden. We were lucky enough to have a spot in our gigantic backyard big enough to fit a rather large raised garden, be easily accessible to water, and receive a good amount of sun during the day. It is also in a space that was largely unusable for anything else except for placing the random broken branches for future burning.
This is the spot we chose.
Just starting.
My dear husband, who is infinitely handy with his capacity to design and build things he has never even done before, came up with the design and with my small help was able to carry it out. We used composite wood decking as this would pretty much last forever and we would never have to paint it or maintain it in any way.
Ladies and gentleman she IS good with power tools.
We finally got the first bed done and rather than finish all three planned and potentially miss the planting season we decided to go ahead and fill it in with dirt. Let me tell you that dirt is not cheap. We can get mulch for free through the city, but good dirt you have to pay for.
This trailer is full of dirt just waiting for someone (me) to shovel it into its new home.
We still need more dirt.
Now with a little over two weeks gone by since the last picture was taken we have a second bed up and both are now filled with dirt and a mulch/manure mix that should give me some pretty decent fruit and vegetable production. having this mix will also prevent us from having to use any chemical fertilizers for a very long time as well. It does smell a bit still, but that will go away the longer we have it.
We still plan on putting in a third bed that will be a smaller L shaped version of the larger outside bed.
The boys were my big helpers and brought me the plants for planting and dug my hole (for a bit) and brought me the wire cages for my tomatoes. Then they got distracted and went away.
On the north side closest to the shed I planted all different kinds of tomato plants. Seven to be exact. These are then followed by two different kinds of cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, and eggplant. There is a large empty space that will be partially filled in with more corn, which is at the south end of the large bed.
This is looking out into the back yard. When all is said and done there will be three raised beds forming a sort of F around the fire pit. There will be 30inch gravel walkways between each of the beds as well as a connecting walkway at the end of the F so I can have access the entire way around the middle bed. The total dimensions are about 20’x24’ minus the space that goes around the fire pit.
Andy also has plans to put up a white picket fence around the entire garden with gate access at the front by the fire pit and on the side by the back path. The inside of the fence will be lined with chicken wire to prevent small animals from gaining access through the slats in the fence. The front will eventually have an arched entryway with the the gate and I am open to suggestions as to what I should grow over the top of it. Something edible would be nice and he has already ruled out grapes. Also, once the fence is up we plan on planting raspberry and blueberry bushes on the outside perimeter of the fence. I know these will do well because there are some wild raspberries that are growing along the property line by the woody area in the pictures that are pretty decent to eat and are not maintained at all.
Andy thinks that the fire pit will now have to be moved forward from the garden by at least three feet so it is comfortably away from the massive fires he intends to build. This is what it should like when it is complete. I already have what is done planted, but there is still plenty of room to grow.
Really the hidden agenda behind this whole garden is to get my beloved little (12 inch) gnome out of his box and into a home, but I will take the fruits of my labors as well and enjoy them too. More progress will come and when it does I will put up another update.
