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Fall Raised Bed

Almost done and about to move it to its forever home, aka the back left corner of our back yard!

William acting like Jesus being a carpenter and what not. Screwing in the last screw! Whew, finally!

This is for a 4’x7’ and 12” high, raised bed garden. Soil, manure, plants and fertilizer from Lowes, spent about $195 (12 bags of soil, 10 large paper sacks, 2 bags cow manure, plants, a weed landscaping covering, landscape covering stakes (to hold it in place) and blood meal.

Place the raised bed into your desired spot, then cover the ground with your landscape covering and secure with stakes.

Line the bottom of the bed, on top of the landscape covering, with paper sacks. This is used as a weed blocker and also a filler. Because soil is expensive as hell.

Hi fellow gardeners!

If you would have asked me when I was 20 if this would be a hobby of mine I would have laughed in your face. I freaking love it though, just watching something start from a tiny plant to a large plant with tons of veggies just turns me on.

The first garden we did for summer was just an in ground garden. It was my very first one and I honestly had no clue how much work goes into it. I told myself the next one would be a raised bed garden. So here we are, talk about 10x easier! No tilling the ground, which is a bitch and I will never do it again which means, raised bed gardens from now until I die.

I cook everyday, as you probably know, and I wanted everything in my recipes to be super fresh. Being fresh is a top priority. Farm to fork baby. That is why vegetable gardens are a must have.

I did a lot of research when it comes to plants or vegetables that can withstand a Texas winter. Which, if we are being transparent, is not that cold or intense. The veggies that I decided to plant are broccoli, Brussel sprouts, celery, Buttercrunch lettuce, romaine lettuce, kale and garlic. I did plant one tomato plant but not sure that will work out. I just wanted to test it.

Here is a video on how to build a simple raised bed garden. The size of our bed is 4’x7’ and 1’ tall. We got our wood from Lowes (2x 6”x14ft wood and then 2x 6”x12ft wood pieces) You will have about 8 ft of wood left over. Which you will cut into 4x 1 foot pieces to go in the 4 corners of the bed. We spent about $115. You will also need wood screws, a circular saw, a measuring tape and a pencil. I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the actual building of the bed, just a few at the end, but hopefully the video helps! Most of the pictures are a step by step of the planting part of the raised bed.

A lot of my gardening tips and tricks come from the internet, trial and error and my best friend since third grade, Meleah. She is the master gardener. I call her on the reg asking questions. She is the country gardener and I am the city gardener :) It is actually funny how different my plants grow here in Dallas and how different hers grow in East Texas, only 2 hours away.

I cannot wait to blog more about how the growth is going once a couple of months go by!

All that soil has been dumped and spread, on top of the paper sacks, in the bed. I also poured in the manure and mixed it together with the soil.

The plants are in! I planted a lot, which may be a mistake but I am going to let them grow a little bit and if it seems over crowded I will pull some of them.

My cute little finger is pointing to the area where I will be planting tulip bulbs! I bought about 50 and cannot freaking wait to see what it looks like come spring!

More flowers will be planted back behind the bed as well as the side. Lots of bulbs will be planted toward the end of October! Spring time is going to be glorious!