Raised Bed Gardens

In the beginning, we faced a challenge in our yard - OK, several challenges but on of the biggest being that our back yard is not flat but sloped. This is nice for a variety of reasons, but when it comes to gardening, we felt a real need to do so on a level surface. Our solution was to terrace the slope using raised garden beds.

Another challenge is the big walnut tree in the middle of the yard creating shade and causing trouble with tomatoes (a natural chemical that the roots of walnut trees give off causes blithe in tomato plants which is no good at all!) Planting the tomatoes in fresh soil in raised beds should help us avoid the blithe issue, but shade remains... we just deal with it - the tree does, after all, provide lots of wild fun by supporting our daughter's tire swing.

We added a total of six new raised beds this year. I would have liked more but we're trying to take things slow and not spend all of our cash in one project. Holding off on the additional beds allowed us to purchase a cherry tree and 3 blueberry bushes which we have yet to plant.

We (mostly I) love the feeling of organization that the raised beds provide. Having a visually appealing property is really important to me, but I want it to be functional as well. For us, raised beds are the best of both worlds and we're absolutely loving them so far!!