VEGGIE GARDENING: Raised Beds

Once you’ve chosen the best place for your vegetable patch, and have cleared the area by lifting grass, removing rocks and stones, etc, it’s a good idea to build a little fence around it. This is especially important if you have animals, and I guess, if you have adventurous toddlers too. I love the idea of Lily helping with the gardening, but only when we’re around :)

Now, once that’s done, it’s up to you decide what type of beds you would like. They can be ordinary flat beds, you can raise the actual soil into long mounds, or you can build raised beds. We decided on raised beds because it gives you the greatest amount of control over you soil, and the quality of your soil is one of the most important factors in growing great veggies.

We’ve also decided to have four raised beds because it means that we can rotate our crops each season (so as to not leech the soil of too many vitamins – but more on this later). Graeme built the little wooden beds himself using four wooden planks for each side. He then waterproofed the insides of the planks, so that they’d last longer.

The last step is to fill the beds with the best soil possible. The ulitmate is to add a mixture of quality topsoil, compost, and rotted manure. Once they’re filled and raked level, you’re ready to begin!