Garden Therapy: A New Vegetable Garden

     Another project that we accomplished this summer was building a new vegetable garden. By we I mean; I supervised and my husband did the work. We've had raised garden beds for twenty years. But time had taken its toll and they were starting to show the strain. The wood was bowing and starting to rot. Being a Pinterest aficionado I found an idea there for raised beds. My husband is of the opinion that Pinterest should be outlawed. 

  

       The above picture is of the old beds. They were 20 inches high. One thing we learned from building these beds was that the 4 by 4 posts should have been closer together. The new beds are 36 inches high.

     We used 3 - 8 foot long pieces of corrugated steel per side and a half sheet on each end. As this picture shows my husband not only put the posts closer together but also used pieces of rebar in between. Al shoveled the dirt to the opposite side then removed the old wood and posts. He dug holes, set the new posts with concrete and screwed the metal to the posts. He then shoveled the dirt back to the other side, repeat.

     Here's a shot of getting ready to set posts. With so much shoveling and digging Al did hire a college student to help him with some of the work. We did make the new beds shorter then the old ones. The extra dirt was used to fill up the new higher beds. A friend with a tractor helped us with that part.

     As you can see in this photo Al painted the bottom of the posts with a protective coating. This will help the wood last longer in the ground. When he finished all the sides he cut the 4 by 4 posts the same height as the metal.

     Because the edge of the metal would be sharp he used 2 by 4's along the top. This also made a good place to set up sprinklers. We can hook up the hose from our well and water the garden and surrounding grass all at one time.

     Here's two more views of the finished beds. Because the beds did take awhile being built I wasn't able to plant as much as I usually do. But I have to say I think Al did a fabulous job. I love my new beds. We are twenty years older then when we built the first ones, so the higher beds are definitely easier on the ole back.  

A thought to ponder: "Your mind is the garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can either be flowers or weeds."        William Wordsworth

Participating in: You're Gonna Love it