Hello, steemians, and welcome to my garden, eh!
I started this raised bed project probably a month ago and I've been working on it a little at a time, as my energy allows. I finally have it mostly done now. I had a raised bed on part of this spot last year, but I wanted to expand it a bit and raise it a bit higher this year. It became somewhat more of an effort than I expected because my back really doesn't like shovels anymore.
I built the raised bed where the old greenhouse was to take advantage of the remaining back wall of the old greenhouse. I didn't tear down the back wall when I removed the rest of the greenhouse because I have some firewood stacked against it. With the wall behind the raised bed, it serves as a bit of a microclimate by blocking the wind from the north and allowing the sun to heat the bed a bit sooner in the spring, and later into the fall. At least, that's the theory anyway. Also, if I wanted to make a protective enclosure for the raised bed in the fall, I have a wall to start from.
The first thing I did was to start with the back wall of the new part of the raised bed. I had to dig out some of the dirt that was there to get the boards into place.
I decided to use composite porch boards for the back, they are very rot resistant due to the composite material. You have to use a fair amount of bracing with these composite boards because they are really flexible.
The next thing to do was to shovel out the space for the boards for the front of the raised bed. I just threw the dirt into the raised bed space.
I had to pull the boards out of the old raised bed to use for the new one. These are old treated porch boards that I had been using for the other bed.
Now I just had to rebuild the old raised bed to add it to the new one. I started by building a new end for the bed. As you can see, I planted a couple of my tomato plants in the finished end of the bed while still working on the other end. I wanted to get them in the ground before they got too root bound in their pots. I also used the composite porch boards to rebuild the back of the old part of the raised bed.
I couldn't scrounge up any more old porch boards to use to finish the raised bed, so I had to use a couple of new ones. I'd rather use treated boards that have aged a bit, but I wanted to get the bed finished. I wanted to get the other tomato plants in the bed.
I also planted my last 2 bush type cucumber plants in the bed between the tomato plants, and put a marigold plant between each of the tomato plants. Marigolds are a good companion plant for tomatoes because the reduce the bug infestations in the tomato plants.
I'm still not done filling the one end of the raised bed with dirt, but I'm not in a big hurry to get it done right now. I have a few more tomato plants to put in the bed, but they are still quite small, I started them late. That gives me time to finish filling the bed as I can over the next few days. I still have other things to plant this coming week, like the beans and the rest of the potatoes. I also have my container garden to prepare and plant. I also have to plant the corn in my community garden plot. Lots of work yet to do.
Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by my page and checking out my post, eh!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or a question if you would like.
May the Steem Force be with you!
