Raised Bed Garden 2012



Pinatas are fun

I hope everyone had a super weekend.

Mine began with a get together for cinco de mayo.

At which I drank these margaritas.

But only for adults, apparently.

ridiculous... ridiculously awesome.

And since I was feeling super festive,

I brought a pinata.

Adults drinking Mexican beer and hitting stuff?

Fun!

On Sunday, Chris and I wound up some more prep work for the 2012 Veg Garden.

It was getting down to the wire before I had to start getting things in the ground,

and the weather was mighty fine.

As many of you know,

we live in the city, and our yard is decently-sized for such city,

but still, every square inch counts.

Our side yard which gets the most sun is now home to a HUGE (for our lot)

raised bed.

I'm hoping to get as much bang for my buck (or veg for my space) as possible this year,

and having a nice neat raised bed seems like just the ticket.

This was really affordable for us, too.

We just used 2x4's for the sides

and leftover 4x4's that we had lying around for the corners.

I chopped the 4x4's down to one foot lengths using my mitre saw,

so there's a solid 4" in the ground, and then screwed the 2x4's to the outside.

I cut a couple 2x4's in half to 4 foot lengths for the sides.

This puppy isn't going anywhere.

All together, this thing goes about the whole length of our house.

The most costly part of the project was filling the thing with dirt.

I used a mixture of topsoil, compost from my handy dandy composter for additional nutrients, peet moss to hold some moisture, and organically fertilized garden soil.

Soil differs tremendously based on where you live, so check your soil and talk to your local garden/dirt guru about what you should add to your space.

And as always, for veg and other edibles, stay away from anything that is chemically treated.

Y'all don't want to eat that stuff.

In other news, I'm growing my potatoes in a laundry basket this year,

and they've just started to come alive.

As they grow, I'll cover them with more soil,

encouraging the roots to grow beneath.

My cucumbers and squash are starting to germinate, too.

All very exciting!

For me anyway. :)

Coming up next: attaching my pole bean trellis at the back.

I opted for pole beans instead of bush beans this year,

so they'll be growing more vertically at the back of the bed

and taking up less space in the garden.

I'll have the details for that up in a few days (ish).