Hubby and I decided a couple of years ago, that, if we were going to be successful at vegetable gardening.......we were going to need a plan. Our ground is pretty rocky. By that, I mean anything from pebbles to boulders the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. Raised beds seemed a good solution. Hubby had already terraced the hillside where we wanted the garden. We started looking around for materials we had on hand to build our first section of raised beds. We had quite a few 8x8x16 "Cinder" blocks so we stacked the blocks 2 high on three sides tying into the bank of the upper tier(where my raspberries were already planted). Then we began hauling in loads of sifted soil, compost and composted horse manure (with 4 horses, we have an abundance of this).
Then we hauled in an old galvanized stock tank and filled it with the soil mixture.
We fenced the entire "garden" area to keep the deer out. Then, we had to add bird netting around the fence to keep the CHICKENS out. Don't get me started about "free-ranging" chickens. It's been a pretty good garden. I plant strawberries, herbs and a few flowers in the "holes" of the Cinder blocks. I also CRAM the garden full of our favorite veggies. You've heard of French-intensive gardening? Ours is more of a "Hillbilly" intensive gardening system.
I am absolutely loving all of your gardening posts and I'm learning so much. Now I can't wait to start tomatoes so I can get the wall of water thingies. Ha! I'd never seen those before! Thanks so much for sharing, Lori!
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