Raised Bed Gardens

Several years ago, we decided to start building raised beds for our gardens. We are both getting older and bending over to plant weed and take care of a garden was starting to get harder. I researched and learned one of the reasons people opt for a raised bed other than it’s more convenient as you get older, is that you can grow more in a smaller space. Also, you can decide how good the soil will be by what you use to fill them and by composting and adding it to the beds each year.

First, we needed to build them. As we are big on recycling and reusing as much as possible, we started checking around for used materials. We ended up using concrete blocks. I checked out Craigs list and the local buy sell rummage sights. We got most of them for free and the rest for half or less than the price of new. We also let friends and family know what we were doing. We ended up building three raised beds that first year one block high.

We already had a compost bin. It has hinged lids at the top to add compost items and a garage style door at the bottom each year we can lift the garage door and shovel out the oldest compost that is turned to very rich soil. We added that evenly between the three beds. We then started adding Organic compost, topsoil and cow manure to each bed, mixing as we went. We then planted our first try at growing in raised beds. I planted a little further apart than necessary the first year because I had a hard time believing how close it was recommended to plant.

We had a pretty successful year with what we planted and something I noticed was the flash floods that we sometimes get in the spring hurt some of our neighbor gardens and they had to replant part of their crops. Even though they had a bigger garden, we did not have to replant, and we had enough to share with them.

The next year we raised the gardens up another row. Our sons helped us with that as it was getting harder for me to lift the blocks. I have arthritis in my hands and tend to drop things a lot. The boys did not want to see me drop a concrete block on my foot, so they pitched in. We added compost both from our bin and a few bags from a local greenhouse. We did the same the following year and added a fourth bed behind the fenced in area.

Then came the year we had bad flooding all spring and half the summer. Farmers were having a hard time getting their crops out and several of my fellow gardeners had their gardens wiped out, replanted once and then gave up for the year. That is the year that people started asking about our gardens. We had a bumper crop, especially cucumbers. With our beds two high the plants were watered, but the excess drained out the bottom, so nothing got drowned out.

We shared a lot that year because no one else had cucumbers. Even the local fruit stand asked us about it. They had very few that survived and couldn’t find any one to buy them from. Charles took him a boxful the next day, but the rest we shared with the neighbors. We have three of us that garden and we all share what any extra with each other. Now there are four gardeners on our block. It’s nice having neighbors to share back and forth. We all end up with what we need.