Building A Raised Bed Vegetable Garden

This weekend, my boys and I undertook the taks of building raised bed vegetable garden.  It’s a good task for us, since we don’t have lots of space for gardening.

Building A Raised Bed Vegetable Garden

We’ve tried planting a garden several times over the years, but to be honest, we haven’t given it the attention or work that the task deserves.  But since we’re trying to eat healthier, as well as teach the kids a good work ethic, we figured we’ll try being more serious about the task this summer, so we’re committed.

Based on our reading about raised bed gardening, in theory, a 64-square foot garden bed should be able to provide enough food to feed a family of four.  Since the kids all hate vegetables, my wife and I figure that’s probably a pretty size to try, without the project getting too out of hand.

With that in mind, the boys and I hopped to it this weekend.

As I said, the plan is to build a raised bed vegetable garden and prepare our own growing soil.  The soil in Kentucky is largely clay, and I know we can grow vegetables in it, but quite frankly, I just don’t want to spend much time bent over pulling weeds and stuff.

The equipment, shown right, was four 2″x6″ boards, measuring 8-feet long.  We also picked up 16-quarts of vermiculite and 3 cubic feet of sphagnum peat moss.  Toss in some weed barrier carpet to (hopefully) alleviate much by way of grass growing up through the growing mixture, and we should be good to go.

We picked a location that gets full sun in our yard.  Fortunately, we have such an area.  The area was cleared off, and the boards stood up and screwed together to make the raised bed rails.  I used a woodworking square to make certain they were squared up nicely.  Make certain NOT to use pressure treated boards.

The soil amendment is a modification on “Mel’s Mix”, and was made by blending (approximately) 1/4-parts vermiculite, 1/4-parts peat moss, and 1/2-parts leaf compost.  As you can see from the above, I have a pickup truck, so I just went to a contractors center and had them dump one cubic yard of leaf compost in the bed.

After laying out the weed block, we started mixing the soil amendment by hand.  At first, we were using a pitch fork to toss the compost out of the truck and onto a tarp, where we would mix it around.  After a while though, that got tedious, and we backed the truck up to the raised bed and switched to a hoe and mixing directly in the garden bed.

I think the finished product looks pretty good sitting there without any thing in it.  Predictably, the kids started loosing interest toward the end, but overall it was a pretty good day.

Now we just need to get some plants in it.

To read more about this project, check out the full project at my 2010 Raised Vegetable Garden Project page.  You can also pick up the authoritative text on Square Foot Gardening.