Raised garden beds.

This is probably the DIY project I am most consumed with. It all started because I had some unused space on the south end of my house. I decided I wanted to remove all the weeds and plant a vegetable garden. For as long as I can remember having a vegetable garden in my family has been important. My grandparents are very big in the home storage and so my grandpa would always have these amazing gardens. He passed that passion on to my dad, who in return passed it on to me. My first garden was not a complete success, nor was it a total failure.

I only grew a few things my first year. Lettuce, cucumbers (pictured above) and tomatoes.(pictured below)

As you can tell from my "tomato cages" it seemed like my first time growing, and it was.I did not clear out all the weeds like I should have and just really did a "wing it" job. I was usually there to help my dad and this year, I wanted to do it all on my own. It is now the beginning of April and my garden already looks a ton better. I made better use of my space and planned out what I wanted to grow and where I was going to plant it.
So this year I went in and killed all the weeds using RoundUp. It killed everything! I cleaned it all up and started my preparations for something new. I wanted to build raised garden beds. I started researching everything I could about them. I finally decided I was going to build 6 beds in my space of about 21' x 10'. Four of the beds would be 8' x 2' x 1' and the other two 6' x 2' x 1'.

I ended up building my beds out of 2' x 6' x 8' and 4x4. I cut the 4x4 into 12" lengths then took a 2x6x8 and cut it into 2'. The bed above was my first. I used untreated wood to keep from it getting into the soil in later years.

It took me a few hours to get all 6 done. Due to the shape of my house, the last 2 were 6ft long. After I had them all build I spaced them out by 18" enough space to walk through with ease. I also got them as close to the fence as possible too. Cleans up pretty nice right? :)
Soon after the beds where finished I found a local who was selling some topsoil mixed with horse manure. (Still not sure if that is the best idea yet, I'll find out in July-August) I filled them all and packed it in. It is still settling. That will take a while and next year I plan on topping them off with some MiracleGrow topsoil. Mixing it in and preparing the soil.

The soil was pretty lumpy and took quite  some time to break it up. The next thing I did was germinate my seeds. There is a separate page for that. After the germination I started working on my watering system.

In order to create the best watering system I first needed to lay out where everything was going to be. I need so using these little flags. Must say I am pretty glad that I did cause my original layout idea did not work very well. I ended moving things around to make room for everything. I would recommend this to everyone every time.

After measuring out how much PVC I would need and mapping where the water lines would be, I dry assembled it. This is extremely important because once you glue the pipes together its permanent.

While I was laying out my water line I also took a marker to mark where all my soaker hoses would be attached and where each piece was to be.

                           

This is what mine looks like once everything was glued in and put into place. I bought a 50' soaker hose, 6 male and 6 female hose ends from the local hardware store and then assembled the line for each individual bed.

From here I took some of the rocks from around my house I had been wanting to get rid of and put them down each of the rows so when the ground is wet, I do not get very muddy.

This is where I currently am in my project. I now just need for the weather to warm up so that I can finish planting the rest of the garden. Until later!