Building Raised Garden Beds
The pathway is dug three shovel widths and the soil is moved to the new bed, on the right here. This almost doubles the topsoil depth in the beds.
Using the steel garden rake, soil is smoothed and the bed is created.
Amendments are spread along the two rows of the bed – compost, organic fertilizer and dolomite lime.
Amendments are throughly hoed to a depth of 4-6 inches. The bed is ready to plant.
The garlic was planted last fall. Asparagus is planted in the trench to the left. The deer fence is eight foot vinyl – at the bottom is four inches of wood chips over landscape fabric…there will be few weeds to deal with along this fenceline.
Reader Comments
Dan – I came across your business site today in my searches for information on building a backyard pond. I’ve found lots of sites with information, but none as enjoyable as yours. Thank you.
I’d consider it a “sticky” site. Nice job.
Then I found your blog here. (I see you are pretty new to wordpress – still liking it? I just found it last year and love it.)… This particular post was of interest to me. A few years ago we tilled a garden and definitely didn’t do things correctly. I decided the next garden would be raised beds – and what do you know, here you do it.
Great photos too.
Thanks for the comment, Judi.
Yes, I like WordPress much better than my previous system.
Building raised beds is a bit more work, but has important advantages. This year (second year at this garden), it has been much easier and faster to prepare the beds for planting.
Dan,
What a great tutorial! My husband and I have a small urban garden, and we provide veggies for a local green restaurant. We’re always looking for new and inexpensive tricks. What luck have you had with using less cash-intensive mulching materials (ie. straw) on raised beds?
Also, I’ve added you to my blogroll. This is a lovely site.
Thanks for your note Mandy,
Straw, grass clippings, etc. are fine for mulching, and even for soil improvement if you have the time for them to decompose thoroughly. For immediate amendments I use small amounts of compost, rock powders, etc.