A Retrospective

First experiment with raised beds started in 2010. It made for many jokes about graveyards, but it also sure made gardening easier.









Note that this is regular hem-fir. We refused to use treated lumber. (That treatment is poison; we didn't favor growing our family's food in the midst of poison.)








Didn't use cedar because cedar's expensive! And it isn't really suitable for direct burial.










2011 saw the addition of chips between the beds.











Good results in the garden, while we built the greenhouse. Also 2011.









2012:  I doubled the height of the raised beds, added a couple of inches of really dry meadow muffins, and watered the garden. I'll dig it into the dirt later.











2013  saw the demise of the flowering plum that shaded the west end of the garden.

Miss that tree (and that tree house). Used the stump for a fireplace while we burned it out.
















2018: all the wood beds have pretty well rotted by now. We're gradually replacing them with galvanized steel on top of cinder blocks.








This brought the working height up to old-guy range. We had to buy a lot of dirt, which means we had to shovel a lot of dirt, which is awfully good exercise.

Seems to work pretty well.

One bed to go: when the garlic is ready, we'll harvest it and replace the remains of that wood with cinder blocks and galvanized steel, and the upgrades will be done.