“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”GENESIS 2:15
This year we decided to try even more to live off the land. We planted a garden but not just any garden, we made a raised garden bed. We made the decision to do this because we are not young anymore and my husband and I both have back problems. Right now our garden is only six inches tall but we are going to add a level every year so that when we are older it will not be as hard on us to do a garden. We decided to build our beds ourselves because it is a great learning opportunity for our kids Also lets just face it, what better way to have family time than to build something together that will produce food we can gather around the dinner table to enjoy together. In the cover photo for this post they were knelt down with their ears to the wood listening to the vibrations while their dad drilled screws into the wood. They loved it.
Purchasing The Raised bed
You can find already built raised beds anywhere Facebook, Rural King, Lowes and so on. Our children went to Lowes with us to pick out and purchase the wood we needed for this project. We had a lot of fun standing in the middle of Lowes, taking up a whole isle to lay out the wood we would need. We had it basically built in the isle so we could see what we needed. We had to visualize it before purchasing everything.
We got all we needed to build our garden bed at a great price. We got:
- 1- 16ft board
- 6- 8ft board
- 6- extra pieces of wood for the corners
- screws long enough to go through two pieces of wood
The 16 ft board we got 50% off because it had a knot on it. And the extra pieces we got for free because they use them for the pallets in the back. Although we had a friend that works at our Lowes and she helped us out with our extra pieces of wood, you may be able to ask. The extra pieces do not have to be perfect they are just going to be used to drive in the ground to keep your bed sides from expanding over the years. In the picture to right my husband is showing our kids how you need to check your screws with the wood you are getting to make sure it will go through both pieces.
Building Our Raised Garden Bed
The dimensions of our bed is 16′ X 8′ X 6″ (16′ wide, 8′ long, and 6″ deep) with an additional 6’X 4′ X 6″ box added on the side that will serve as the planting spot for our Jerusalem Artichokes. We decided to build the build in a “U” shape so that we could access all parts of the garden without having to actually get inside of it and this also allowed for maximum use of space as well.
We placed the extra wood at every angle in our garden and in the middle of the 16ft piece of wood. We made sure it was level with the top of our wood and buried the rest in the ground.
Finishing The Raised Garden Bed
When we finished building the bed we put cardboard down on the ground to help keep weeds out and to attract worms to our garden. Worms love cardboard because of the corrugation in them allows them to travel quickly and freely from one place to another. Then we went to our local landfill and got one ton of compost (which is made when they do city wide leaf collection in the fall), we will need to get more but its a good start. we put a trellis over the entrance made from a goat panel and four T-post. This is a great way to plant any vegetable that vines, such as green beans or cucumbers to grow up along the trellis which keeps them off the ground and saves your back when harvesting or weeding. Not to mention a trellis with any kind of plant growing up it is always beautiful especially if that plant has a flower bloom before the vegetable is made. This year we planted bush beans so we are using our trellis for our cucumbers. We will have a lot because our daughter requested we try to make pickles this year, We have never made pickles before but you never know if you can do it until you try it.
We also put a fence on one side of our garden for our tomato and tomatillo plants. As the tomato plants grow you can attach the stem to fence to help keep your plants from falling over. When the leaves of a tomato plant touches the ground it could give your plant blight which a disease that will cause them not produce tomatoes or it will produce tomatoes that tend to rot on the vine before you can harvest them. We planted a lot of tomatoes this year because I want to make salsa, spaghetti sauce, and tomato sauce.
Another thing we have in our garden is cages for our zucchini and squash. This will help keep the leaves off the ground so our plants can be healthy and produce a little more as well as helping to prevent little surprises (snakes) from crawling up under the leaves for a shady resting place.
We are planting a variety of vegetables. We were able to plant a so many plants in our garden.
- wax beans
- green beans
- tomatoes
- onions
- cucmbers
- zucchini
- yellow squash
- bell peppers
- jalapenos
- habanero pepper
We have barrels we are going to plant our potatoes in so that we can have plenty of potatoes without sacrificing our limited space in the raised bed, and this also allows us to move the barrels around the yard if we need to.
We decided to plant our Watermelons off to the side of our bed since they tend to get large and take over areas. We planted them directly into the ground and my husband put corrugated plastic around them just to assist in weed eating until we get the mulch put down around them.
We are so excited about our garden this year. We have been praying that the Lord will bless it to produce lots and lots of vegetables. Maybe it will produce so much that we can give to others!