Saturday, May 19, 2012

Raised Bed Gardening

For the longest time I had been wanting to do raised garden beds. I just loved the idea of being able to extend the growing season just a bit longer. We have such short summers up here, and for us a garden means food for winter.

Last year my husband and I decided to try our hand at raised garden beds, so we built 7 of them. Each is 4'w x 8'L x 12"h. It was a lot of work, but worth every bead of sweat that we put into them. As you can see, they turned out pretty well. They are much easier to weed, too!



Normally we don't start our garden until Memorial weekend or later, but this year we were able to start it on April 20th. We planted some peas, carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and rutabagas and then tented them with some garden fabric specifically made for this purpose. This keeps the beds warm and protected, but still allows them to receive sun and rain.


My husband and I love our raised beds and highly recommend them. If you're thinking about doing raised beds, it's not too late to get them done this year. It's still early enough in the season. There are lots of videos on YouTube that show you how to build them, if your not sure how.


carrots and beets



 potatoes


peas


I hope I inspired you to start your own raised bed gardens. I think you'll love the results...I know we do!


Blessings,
Julie

3 comments:

  1. Hi Julie..
    I am catching up on my reading..
    The beds look great.. We put our garden in the ground and our herbs in raised beds..
    I guess we are old fashioned.. smile..
    Have a blessed weekend..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Finally I found you. My raised beds are almost finished and I built them all by myself. Of coarse Bevs employees brought the soil in and Bev and I put dark compost all around them. They should be finished tomorrow I'll be posting soon.
    your friend Janice

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  3. When I own a house again I will definitely have to do this. I see more and more people building raised beds. What a beautiful backyard you have :-)

    Mary

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