No, I'm not talking about fluffing pillows and bouncing coins of your sheets. I'm talking about growing plants in a raised garden bed!
I'm going this route versus digging straight into the ground for a couple of reasons... One, there are a lot of roots from nearby trees that I don't want to interfere with (or have them interfere with my plants). Two, there's still that huge mound of soil plopped in the back of the yard and it's a total eyesore. I was going to try and plant directly on the hill, but the girls are constantly trampling all over it, which doesn't make for a friendly growing environment. Using some of that soil for my vegetable bed should reduce the monstrosity to half its size. I planted my butterfly garden in a raised bed using the same soil mixed with peat moss and the plants are thriving in it.
Oh yes, another reason for doing a raised beds is to have more of a defined space for vegetables, which, I hope, will discourage the kids from stomping on seeds and plants.
There were some beautiful elevated cedar beds at the nursery, but they're a little pricey. So keeping our limited budget in mind, I'm going to try a DIY bed using these methods
here and
here. I'm going to stick with cedar, but I've considered all kinds of ideas that I thought I'd share with you.
Or how about planting in feed troughs, with holes poked in the bottom?
Got an unused kiddy pool and not a lot of space? No problem! Look at how these clever urban gardeners made the most of their resources by planting in plastic pools (above). Read more about urban farming
here.
These concrete beds could be a very easy DIY project. Especially if the beds were lower to the ground. Not sure why they're so elevated here. How about some parsley along the edges to soften things up?
Ever tried building your own raised bed for flowers or vegetables?
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