Conversion to Raised Bed Square Foot Garden – Progress Report

If you’ve been reading my previous posts, my husband and I created a square foot garden for the first time 3 years ago. We did this because we live on top of an almost completely rock ridge line with NO good soil. (We had to have 40 truckloads of soil brought in for a small civilized area around the house years ago.)

This is the square foot garden. It has six 4 foot x 4 foot squares of planting area. We filled the squares with Mel’s Mix (a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as we can find. We’re using mushroom, cotton burr, barnyard, and our own compost from time to time.)

Since I’m getting old and find it harder and harder to bend over double or get down on my knees (and up again) over and over in order to plant, weed, and harvest, we decided to convert our garden from a ‘regular’ square foot garden to a raised bed square foot garden.

We made six 4 foot x 4 foot treated wooden boxes with bottoms, drain holes,  (and a water barrier around the bottoms for protection.) We made the boxes 8″ deep, instead of the 6″ deep we have now. We also made six metal supports for the boxes and legs so that we could build something like ‘tables’.

When my lettuce and spinach bolted, I cleaned out the squares. I transplanted what was left in the planters on the south side of the garden to available squares on the north side, figuring we would start at the back of the garden area on the south side to convert to the raised planters.  (We’re cleaning out the old and then replacing with the new raised bed boxes, with the plan that when we have the three boxes on the south side of the garden finished, we’ll put sprinklers on the top and connect them with lengths of hoses to the irrigation system. I’m planning to have a fall garden this year in the raised bed planters!)

This is the north side of the garden with the regular square foot garden squares. I’m growing tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, and some melons at the moment.

 

I have no clue whether I’m getting all greenery and no veggies, or what. I’m just hopeful at this point.

 

We’re getting a nice number of tomatoes that are absolutely delicious. We’re having a nice big one sliced with dinner each night, and loving it!

 

Here is what we’ve done on the south side of the garden so far. When we finished the second one, it was way higher than the first one, due to encountering rock we could not break through, so we ended up taking it down, cutting off the legs, and then putting it back up. We learned to really look at things before we add the wooden box and fill it with Mel’s Mix…. :0)

NOTE: Don’t tell my husband you saw the weeds in these boxes. He was incensed that they had the GALL to grow in the first box and refused to do more until we weeded the box. I have since weeded both boxes, so they look pristine.

 

This is the area where we’ll put the third raised bed box. It’s now clear of asparagus plants and roots (I think.) After we get the third one installed, we’ll put down more wood chips.

 

This pic shows the template we use for where to drill the holes for the legs for the metal support for the box. There are pieces of pipe mounted on the 4×4 plywood. We put the template on the ground, then drill right down through the pipe as far as we can, then adjust from there.

If we can find an evening that isn’t too stifling, we’ll get started on the last planter for the south side of the garden!