Veggie Gardening in Raised Garden Beds

Backyard Makeover

After 20 years it was time for our backyard to have a makeover. Weeds had grown wild - we do have a bit of a wild garden. A few years of ill health also attributed to the growth of the weeds. 

Mr F got his digging shoes on and dug out all the weeds. He was pretty ruthless. 

Mr F hard at work. Me having fun with the camera

Next he built some garden beds. I have never seen raised beds so artistically angled and designed to fit the space perfectly. They are so well made, they will not break down.

Building archetecturally designed raised garden beds

Next it was time to fill the beds. We had over two cubic metres of soil that we screened to get out all the weeds and stones. I could not believe we had so many stones. The veggies certainly would not have gained any nutrients from them. 

Pea straw as a base for the soil in a raised garden bed

First, in goes a layer of pea straw. This will rot down and give nutrients to the soil and attract beneficial critters to it. On top of that went the soil, manures, coir and mushroom compost. Within days, the bed was ready to plant. I had some old potato pieces that had grown shoots. I kept them with just this situation in mind. So in they went as out first planting. Here they are coming up a couple of weeks later. They look small now, but believe me, they grew to be over 60cm tall (2ft).

Our first potatoes

Mr F had to take out a tree that was causing problems and sending out shoots everywhere. He had to dig down 1 metre (3ft) to get rid of the root. he filled the hole with lots of stones we had screened from the soil for the garden bed. It was heavy and hard work. Note the resting chair and some of the roots.

The all-important resting chair

It didn't take long for this to happen. We collected a lot of zucchinis from here. 

Zucchini is all pervasive. It covered everything else in the bed. 

While in the garden nursery, I found a sweet potato plant. It went into the largest pot I could find.

Sweet potato growing in a large pot

 Here's a little bit of the produce we have been reaping, - zucchinis, potatoes, tomatoes, and beans.

Produce from the garden in less than three months

And the broccoli is growing really well. 

Broccoli with its blue green colour