Raised Bed Gardening: 6 easy steps for beginners
Two years ago, I decided that I needed to find some new interests and hobbies. My life had revolved around the kids and their activities for the past several years, but with the nest slowly emptying I realized it might be time to expand my horizons a bit.
What could I do that would give me a focus outside of work? Well, I liked to dig in the dirt. I liked to nurture things. I liked to eat. With all of those things considered, there was only one logical choice. Pig farmer. HA! Just kidding, I decided to try my hand at raised bed gardening. After a bit of researching on the internet, it was time to start planning. Remember..I am FAR from being an expert, but these are the steps that this “newbie” took..
1. I bought a notebook to write out my plans.
2. In this notebook, I wrote down all of the vegetables that I was interested in planting. I chose tomatoes, onions, potatoes, green beans, carrots, cucumbers, jalapenos, and spring lettuce. That’s quite a list for someone that did not know what she was doing!
3. I researched each vegetable to find out the best times to plant in our zone of the country. I then wrote out a little chart with each month and what I would plant at that time. A spreadsheet would have looked nicer, but do I know how to do one of those? Are you kidding me? A pen and paper chart worked just fine.
4. I researched plants that would be “friendly neighbors” with each other, and what ones I would need to plant farther apart.
5. I drew out a diagram of what I wanted my raised beds to look like and how I would section each vegetable off.
6. My sweet husband built the beds for me and prepared them with soil. I was nearly ready to plant.
The first planted were onions, potatoes, and spring lettuce. The lettuce was planted from seed and came up very quickly.
By early May, I was so excited to actually prepare my first salad with lettuce that I grew myself! The other plus about the lettuce is that I basically just gave it a “haircut” and it continued to grow.
Soon after, I planted tomatoes. The green beans, carrots, and cucumbers were all planted from seed. Even though I am no gardener, my raised beds flourished. The lettuce continued to produce until late June. In July, the potatoes were ready to dig up. What fun that was. Seriously, it was like treasure hunting for potatoes!
The tomatoes produced fruit the entire summer….
as did the cucumbers!
The carrots were the last to mature, and I harvested them in September.
The feeling of watching something grow, something that I planted with my own hands, was fantastic. I admit I did not do everything right that first year, but I had a lot of fun and learned so much.
We implemented a few changes last year, and this year I decided to cut back and only plant tomatoes, cucumbers, and jalapenos. We also re-built our beds for easier access.
Raised bed gardens can be as simple or elaborate as you choose. I now belong to a few raised bed gardening pages and have learned from the people that really know what they are doing! I have even seen people with very little outdoor space using pots or containers to plant vegetables. Anybody can do this, and it can be a very rewarding hobby..with the added benefit of home grown food for your table!
