DIY: How To Set Up A Raised Bed Garden

Do you love getting your hands in the dirt? My garden and backyard are my happy place! As soon as the weather warms up you will find me puttering around outside in the sunshine enjoying the sun on my face. There are few things in life that bring me more joy than relaxing in my garden surrounded by nature.

Over the years I’ve dabbled with growing vegetables, with limited success. To be quite honest, if we depended on my garden to feed ourselves, we would have starved to death, LOL. Our previous house had many beautiful mature trees that cast a lot of shade. The shade was great when the triple digit summer heat set in, but all that shade made it difficult to successfully grow sun loving vegetables.

Northern California, where I live, is in Zone 9. We get all our rainfall in the winter and early spring. A mostly temperate Mediterranean climate with very few hard freezes; baking hot, dry summers with temperatures in the triple digits.

Our new house gets a lot more sun and it’s been a fun learning experience experimenting with different vegetables to see what I could successfully grow. Up to this point I’ve grown some tomatoes, Jalapeño peppers and a variety of herbs in small containers on my patio. I started small so I could see how things would go.

I’m glad I started small! It provided the perfect opportunity to learn what worked well and what the biggest challenges were for me.

Biggest Challenges Learned:

• Potting soil isn’t necessarily the best nutrient rich medium for producing large yields.
• Hand watering quickly becomes a tedious chore. Baking hot triple digit temps can be the death of a plant in just a single day if you aren’t diligent about watering regularly.
• Small containers dry out quickly and need daily watering when it gets hot.

Greatest Successes Learned:

• I can grow loads and loads of basil from seed. More basil than I can possibly ever use. Basil grows like a weed for me.
• I had a bumper crop of Jalapeño peppers last year.
• I have better luck growing cherry tomatoes than larger beefsteak tomatoes.
• Garlic is super easy to grow from cloves. I just push cloves into the soil and they grow.
• Green onions will sprout from kitchen scraps and grow quiet well even in a shady location.
• I learned that the better the quality of the soil, the better the crop yield.
• Herbs are best grown in containers, in a sunny spot close to the kitchen so I can easily step outside and clip off what I need when I’m cooking.

Over the winter I did a bunch of research. The fun part was learning about different plants and their growing habits. I spent hours and hours reading about the best ways to grow my favorite veggies.

How do you decide what vegetables to grow in your garden? Take a look at what vegetables are on your grocery list every week.

I finally had to dig in and get practical. I had to figure out the most important element, what kind of soil I wanted to use. Since I’m designating a portion of my front yard for a vegetable garden, I knew I wanted to start with a good quality soil that would provide excellent results. In the past, potting soil has given me less than stellar results so I knew I wanted a better alternative.

I decided to go with a soil mix that is used in Square Foot Gardening, called Mel’s Mix. It costs more than the other soil mixes I researched but every single gardening blog I read stated that this soil mix consistently produced superior results for them as far as growth and yield. The odds of having a thriving garden seem to be greatly increased with this magic mix of soil. It’s absolutely true that the most important component of a successful garden is the soil. Skip it or attempt to do a workaround, and your results simply won’t be as effective.

So what exactly is “Mel’s Mix”? It’s equal parts:

• 1/3 Peat moss
• 1/3 Vermiculite
• 1/3 Compost (I used a combination of Steer manure and Chicken manure)

If you are new to gardening, I would urge you to start small! It’s hard not to get carried away and want to set up large planting beds with rows and rows of every kind of veggie you’ve ever eaten.

• The reality is that it’s a lot more work than you realize setting up a garden.
• Maintaining a garden takes consistent commitment for good results, especially if you don’t have an automatic watering system in place that will take care of the chore of watering plants on a regular basis.
• Staying on top of weeding is important and can be time consuming especially if you have large planting beds to maintain.

Start small with containers to learn. Then when you are ready to graduate from small container gardening to something a little larger, consider using a galvanized steel watering trough as a raised planter bed.

Benefits:

• The taller height is a real back saver; reducing the amount of kneeling and bending needed to work in the garden.
• The taller height discourages small critters from easily getting into your vegetable beds.
• In the long run, galvanized steel will far outlast planters made of wood.
• Their slim design works well in smaller garden spaces.
• You can attach casters on the bottom making it easy to move around your yard.

Drawbacks:

• Cost is higher than wood planter beds.
• More soil is needed to fill the container, increasing the initial cost.
• Silver color may not be ideal but can easily be changed with paint.
• Can be cost prohibitive for large scale gardens.
• Choose garden location wisely, once trough is filled with soil it will be very heavy and can not be moved easily.

Location, Location, Location

For best growing results, select a location that receives at least 6 hours of direct sunlight each day. Most vegetables are sun lovers so picking a sunny spot is important. Check the area where you want to set up a garden several times throughout the day. Note when it first receives direct sunlight and the time of day when it no longer receives direct sunlight. Are there any trees or structures that might cast shade during the day?

Once you have a sunny spot picked out it’s time to get the trough prepped. The galvanized steel was much too bright and reflective and the color didn’t work with the color scheme of my garden. I spray painted it so that it blended with my existing garden decor and the house.

I used 2 coats of Rust-oleum dark brown spray paint in a satin finish.

Good Drainage Is Important

Next I drilled drainage holes in the bottom of the trough. I used a large drill bit and spaced the holes about 4 inches apart all along the bottom of the trough.

Now it was finally ready to set it in place. We placed cement pavers under the trough to keep it just off the ground so that it could drain easily.

Set Up An Automatic Watering System

Watering troughs come with a drain hole on one side along the bottom. I removed the cap and fed a drip line hose through the hole.

A Good Soil Mix Is Most Important

It was finally time to fill the trough. Start by lining the bottom of the trough with either a metal or plastic mesh. This will prevent soil from leaching out of the planter through the drainage holes at the bottom.

Next place a 1 to 2 inch layer of pea gravel, small pebbles or rocks over the mesh. This will also help with drainage and reduce the amount of soil you will need to fill the planter.

Mix together equal parts peat moss, vermiculite and compost and add it to the trough. I found the easiest way to do this was to mix the soils together in a wheel barrow using a shovel.

The soił mix is light and friable, and much looser and lighter than standard potting soils I’ve used in the past. I have a good feeling about this soil mix. I think it’s going to be easy to work with and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it produces the same spectacular results other gardeners have experienced using this soil mix recipe.

Now comes the fun part, the planting!!! I’m growing cherry tomatoes, Jalapeño peppers, bell peppers, cabbage and spinach, all from seedlings/starts.

What are your favorite vegetables? What are you growing in our garden this summer?

Once the plants were in the soil it’s time to attach the quarter inch drip lines to the main drip line and add bubblers. Opt for bubbles that keep water at the base of the plant and direct the water to the roots. Micro-sprayers mist the leaves of the plant and the moisture could cause fungal issues with your vegetables; plus you lose water to evaporation as well when it’s hot.

The finishing step:

It’s a good idea to cover bare dirt around your planter with a material that will keep weeds at bay, and prevent you from having to slog through mud when it rains. Gravel is a great material but can be a bit pricey. I opted to use black bark mulch.

It’s amazing how a layer of mulch gives the garden such a neat and finished look. A big thank you to my girlfriend Iesha for letting me know it was on sale for just $2 a bag at Lowe’s last weekend…SCORE!

Garden Update:

After only 3 weeks my vegetable plants have already tripled in size! Yep…it’s true! Good soil does make ALL the difference! Add plenty of sunshine, and regular watering and it seems that you have the perfect recipe for a successful vegetable garden. I can hardly wait until I’m able to start harvesting the bounty from my little suburban garden.

Be sure to check back in the fall for updates and recipes using the bounty from the Nature Way garden. I’m so excited to see how my little garden grows this summer!!!

Are You Planting A Garden This Year?

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And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

Remember…Jesus ❤️’s you!