Garden and Raised Beds
I have received so many questions about my post last week, where I showed the new raised bed and so I am going to talk about raised beds for a little bit...
Raised beds should be no wider than 4 feet. This way you can reach the middle from both sides.
the way we have made our is to get 3 pieces of 12"x8'x2" untreated pine lumber. You can use redwood but it will be about 3 times the price and I can't say it is three times better. All you have to do is cut one of those pieces in half, so you have two 4 foot sections and then you assemble them with screws--do not nail for it will come apart over time.
Place 3 screws equidistant along the height of the lumber and do that on all four ends. Then you are ready to fill. First I put cardboard, newspaper, or paper to be recycled down on the bottom to keep the grass and weeds out of the bed. Then I just start layering native soil and compost until it's fill it up. My personal preference is to do a 50/50 mix. Then you are ready to plant, it is just that easy!
Here is a link to my good friend Jill's blog,
She has a great step by step post on prepping your beds.
We have gotten our new bed filled and planted this week!
Another extra thing you can do to your raised beds is place a 8"x8'x2"
on top and use it as a ledge to sit on.
This is what we did here for my tomato and pepper bed.
I finished planting all the chilies, tomatoes and basil, too.
Here are our new little garden sign...
we will be selling these at our Farmers/Flea Market on April 2nd
They are also available online.
We also harvest the first round of garlic from our fall planting...which is very exciting...I am trying to plant enough garlic and onions that we will not need to buy it anymore. I feel we are getting one step closer to eating only out of our yard!
Wishing you a happy week!
