Raised Bed Gardens

After some experimentation last year, I discovered that the existing dirt in my yard was horrible for growing vegetables. I mixed in quite a bit of good soil, but it still seemed like it contained too much clay. This year I decided to get a bunch of dirt from Full Circle Compost and build some raised beds. Our most successful garden in Gardnerville was grown in soil from Full Circle Compost.

A near complete bed with one hoop attached.

I did an internet search for raised beds, and found great plans to build the ultimate raised bed on the Sunset Magazine site.

I skipped on the hardware cloth bottom liner, and used 3 1/2″ deck screws instead of the #14 wood screws in the instructions. I found that I couldn’t afford redwood with the number of beds I plan to build, so I used douglas fir. Only 1/3 the price of the redwood! The construction went pretty smoothly, and the finished product looks great!

Two complete beds leveled and in place.

The big challenge has been to keep the dog out of the garden. A couple revisions on the pvc chicken coup fence seem to have done the trick.