Growing your own vegetables is very satisfying.  Eating food that you’ve grown in your own garden is a wonderful way to embrace the idea of farm to table.  Many homeowners don’t have much space to devote to growing their own food.  I definitely fall under this category.  We live in the city with a small yard.  Adding growing space by building raised garden beds has been a great solution.

Raised Garden Beds

1. Don’t cement posts into ground.  Once you put your dirt into the frame, nothing is moving so save yourself this step.
2. Use wood that hasn’t been treated.  Dirt and water will make your wood rot – eventually. We just had to replace a bed that had rotted through but it lasted about 10 years.
3. Don’t use pressure treated wood.  Pressure treated wood has chemicals that you don’t want getting into your food.
4. Choose locations for your beds that get plenty of sun.
5. Make beds a manageable size.  3’ across by 6’ long is an ideal size.  Think about reaching across the bed or weeding.

Finding small pockets of gardening space can be challenging.  Here are some spots in our yard that we’ve added beds to.  Remember to think about location when finding space.  My beds on the south side of my house have done much better than the west side, which has afternoon shade.

This is a good example of using a dead space in our yard.

This was ugly, unused space.  This dirt had a tarp on it for too long to discuss!

My lovely assistant (otherwise known as my husband) dug the dirt up a bit so we could hammer 2” (inch) X 2” (inch) pieces of wood into the ground.

We used 10″ (inch) tall pieces of pine lumber.  Wood was cut with a circular saw.  Attach cut lumber to posts with screws.

This bed faces south and gets sun all day.  I planted peppers here last year and they really liked this location.  This dirt is from our compost bins.

This is a view of our backyard that shows our 2 raised bed we built in place of dried out, dead grass.  It has a flexible fence around to keep our chickens out.  Our backyard girls love to dig in the garden!

Do you have raised beds in your yard?

 Go Gingham related links:

I also like to save seeds and re-use those in my garden!
How to stake tomato plants – a very stylishly frugal method!
Why my tomato plants are happy – what I plant with them
My non-gardener-gardening-strategy – yes, non gardeners can fake it
Three easy herbs to grow – you won’t be able to kill these, I promise!
Growing vegetables in small spaces – I call it “sky gardening”