Building a Raised Bed Part 2

For part 1, see this Blog Entry.

The Raised Bed Kit I bought from Natural Yards.com is 2 feet x 4 feet x 11 inches tall. The kt consists of 8 pieces of wood (4 long pieces and 4 shorter pieces). Each piece of wood is 5.5 inches tall, so two tiers are needed to make the 11 inches height.

The picture to the left shows the untreated pieces of wood. I put old newspapers under the wood so that the stain would not get on my driveway.

I chose a sunny day (~75 degrees F) to apply the stain, so that the wood would dry faster. I wanted to be able to coat several layers of stain on all sides of the wood in a single day.

The picture to the right shows the pieces of wood after I had applied one coat of stain.

The picture below shows how the corners of the kit come together. There is a wedge that is cut

off of each piece of lumber and a hole was drilled through. The long piece of lumber will fit together with a short piece at a right angle. The holes line up and you slide a metal rod through the hole to lock the wood in place.

The best thin about this system is that I can take the pieces of wood apart by sliding the rod out of the hole. No nails. No glue. This makes taking the Raised Bed apart a snap. The only real work is to get rid of the soil inside the Raised Bed. So if I find the stain wearing off, I can easily restain it.

I prepared the site of the Raised Bed by laying several pages of newspaper on the ground. This prevents weeds from the ground growing into the Raised Bed. The newspaper will decompose in a couple of months.

The picture to the left shows the Raised Bed after I had put in the first level of wood. See the metal rods sticking out at each corner. To add in the next level, all I need to do is to slide the wood into the rods. If later on, I need to add more levels, all I need to do is to replace the rods with ones that are a longer length.

The picture to the right shows the fully assembled raised bed. It took me a whole day to apply the stain, but most of it was waiting for the stain to dry. I ended up using the entire 0.75 liter can of Bioshield Aqua Resin.

The picture to the left shows the Raised Bed the next morning after I put in the soil. You can see the drip irrigation lines that I setup to water the Raised bed.

All in all, I am quite pleased with how the Raised Bed looks and how easy it was to assemble. It certainly looks better than the plastic one that I got before. Of course, this Raised bed is several times more expensive!

Raised Beds

I use Raised Beds extensively in my vegetable garden.  Last year, I used 2 raised beds and several containers.  I found that the plants were healthier and more productive in the Raised Beds than in the containers.  This year, I have going to use Raised Beds exclusively.

The picture on the right shows my largest Raised Bed in terms of cubic feet.  I built this Raised Bed out of cement garden blocks.  It is shaped like an inverted T and takes up a 10 feet x 5 feet area.  I created a T shaped so that I can have access to back of the plants.  There are 2 feet x 3 feet wedges on each side of the bottom of the T.  The Raised Bed has a depth of 1 feet and holds a 44 cubic feet of soil.

Last year, I made the mistake of putting 13 cherry tomato plants in this Raised Ged.  This was way too many plants.  The plants ended up competing with each other for sunlight.  It became a tangled mess as plants were threading through each other for sun. Plus, actually picking the tomatoes was difficult, as I had to hunt for the fruit.

The picture to the left shows what the Raised Ged looked like in June of last year.  It looked much worse in August. I actually had to pull plants out in order to create space for the other plants.

This year, I plan to only put 5 cherry tomatoes in this Raised Bed.  I think this will provide me with more tomatoes than I got last year in the same area.

The other Raised Ged that I used last year was fairly shallow. It is L shaped with a base of 5 feet, a length of 18 feet, and a depth of 4 feet.

In the picture to the left, you can see the trellis system I built out of steel rods to support the Winter Melon vines.  I tied the rods together using nylon rope.

The picture below is from last year and shows the Winter Melon vines growing in the trellis network.  The trellis worked very well, as the rods were strong enough to support the weight of the fruit.  

I plan to extend the trellis network to cover more of my garden.

I have added two near raised beds this Winter.

  The circular raised bed  to the right is 3 feet in diameter. I plan to grow sweet potatoes in this raised bed.

My fourth raised bed is a prefabricated plastic raised bed that I bought from Gardener's Supply Company. Below is a picture of the raised bed.  I am not too happy with the way it looks.  I may take it apart after the growing season and replace it with something else.

Lilies Sprouting

Today, I noticed that some of my lilies are sprouting.  I grow several varieties of Asiatic Lilies in various parts of my garden.

The main Lily stem is in the center back of the picture to the right.  The six smaller stems come from the stem bulblets from last year's Lily stem.  I'll probably have to seperate some of these Lilies next Fall.

This particular area of the garden gets the most sunlight.  In addition, the soil depth of this area is very shallow.  I believe both of these reasons contribute to the early sprouting.

I'll probably have some flowers by the end of March. Last year, my first Lily flower appeared on April 1 in this same area.