Ember's Vegetable Garden Version 2.0

It's been 5 years since we went from a chain-link fenced in 15x24 patch of clay to the 15x54 garden I have now.

Apparently that's about how long untreated wood will last when you use 10" or 12" boards for retaining your raised beds. So time to replace them and I've thought long and hard on how I want to do it. I've decided on concrete block with a capstone and then staining or possibly covering with a stone veneer.

Here's the first re-done bed. It will also function as a cold frame.

The one's along the house will now be flush with the wall. 

Looking toward the entrance to garden from front yard. 

Looking toward back yard. 

Couple of things I forgot in first bed but want to remember for the rest. 

1. Consider lining with hardware cloth or some type of chicken wire to keep out moles/rabbits/etc.

2. Insert PVC or metal pipe to add polytunnels? Or may just make a frame for several sections out of wood with cold frame like hinged top.
3. The capstone I want is on clearance at Menard's for $0.63 each! Wow how awesome is that!

Lay out for the rest of the beds is no longer going to be just rectangles that's boring and I can fit more garden space in by different shapes and also going to avoid some shade. The left page is the back and the right page is towards the front. The already build bed is the bed in the lower righthand corner.

Planting below today

A few of my beds especially #8 is really warped and falling apart. So we have been discussing rebuilding the beds and I actually want to consolidate 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and 7 and 8. Then I'll have four beds which I'm already calling A, B, C, and D. Then I marked the current beds according to where stuff will go based on a grid system I set up in GrowVeg.com. I can't believe I never did this before I was always printing my current version of growveg and taking it with me to the garden and trying to gestimate where that was in the actual boxes. Now I would set up string and divide them into square foot gardens. But I never had a system for which grid was which. It mostly worked but this way I can leave the pretty printout inside and just make a list of locations. 

So when we priced what the bed redo was going to cost we estimated it to start at $700 and go up from there. Not really in the budget at the moment. I'm thinking of just consolidating by hammering boards between the beds I want to join for now and in the fall making it look pretty. And may do just beds 7 and 8 over now since that's the beds in the most need.

I love the hot pink or fuschia next to the chartreuse of the berberi.

Chitting potatoes to plant in couple days. Ordered these from the http://www.potatogarden.com/ they were featured on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. What a hunk!

Spring garden

Raised beds, leeks, morning sun why must I go to work.

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Winter garden at 23 degrees

It's finally been in the twenties long enough to make the ground more crunchy and now it's ready for pruning back the strawberry plants. Hopefully now in second year will get a good crop of berries. But if I'm still not successful I'll scrap the bed and switch to a strawberry pot. Here's a walk through!

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