Friday afternoon and evening I was in the yard and garden vigorously hauling compost from truck to the raised beds. Fortunately one yard of compost was all that was necessary to complete the filling of the beds. Saturday’s task will be mulch: mulch for the garden paths and for various other locations around the yard. I can’t wait to see the mulch pathways rather than the exposed dirt that is there now. You can compare this overhead shot to our vegetable garden layout.
Here’s a breakdown of the raised beds:
2 – 8’x4′ Beds (32 square feet each)
2 – 6’x4′ Beds (24 square feet each)
4 – 3’x4′ Beds (12 square feet each)
4 – 2’x4′ Beds (8 square feet each)
The total square footage of the raised beds comes to 192 square feet not including the two 6’x10′ beds that will be normal inground beds. Those two beds would bring the total up to 312 square feet. This may seem small compared to many gardens but one of the advantages to using raised beds is that you can grow more produce in a smaller amount of space. This garden will provide us with more than enough food throughout the growing season.
I’ll update you on the next part of the vegetable garden in my next post!
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I work for a landscape supply company that sells mulch- I tried digging into one of the piles a few weeks ago and it was still frozen once I took out the first 2 tractor buckets!
I guess that’s one of the advantages of living here in Tennessee. I really enjoy the long growing season! The mulch isn’t frozen but we did have a heavy frost last night. By the time I get to my mulch supplier it should be nice and warm!
Hope your back survived the haul…
Hi Dave, Where did you get the compost? I thought about having compost delivered but the delivery cost more then the compost! gail
Skeeter,
My back is still in one piece! Compost is pretty easy to move and it was only one yard. Today’s goal is 4 yards of mulch.
Gail,
I picked it up in a truck locally. I haven’t checked on a delivery price since I can borrow a truck. The Compost Farm delivers I don’t know what they cost though.
Gail,
We don’t have a truck and recently needed three yards of dirt. All the local places had 4 or 5 yard minimums AND huge fees for delivery. It ended up being more economical for us to rent a truck at Lowe’s and go pick up the dirt from the local garden place. The truck rental from Lowe’s was about $20 an hour and we were able to get the dirt and get it unloaded, and get the truck back to Lowe’s in less than 2 hours.
Now close to $40 to rent a truck may sound like a lot, but the way we worked it out, we saved a sigificant amount of money. I think the delivery fee was $100 or something like that. Good luck!
I love it. I also garden in raised beds and I must say it’s very convenient. I’m hoping to add a few more this year as well.
Hi gardeners! I live in Ohio and am having a hard time waiting for our season to begin. Last year I started a garden with two 4 x 8 raised beds. Since I am a single parent, with not much power I searched the internet to find bed that required absolutely no tools. My efforts were rewarded when I stumbled over,” The Farmstead’s mortise-and-tenon raised garden beds are based on a 17th century design”. They shipped within days and were simple enough for me to assemble alone. I filled them with the formula from the “square foot gardening” book. And WOW what a garden I had…even my neighbors that have gardened for years were envious! This year I added two more 4 x 8 beds and four 2 x 6 beds and I am proud to day that these beds are already filled and have pansies planted along their edges! Thank you Mother Nature for the past few weekends that have been unseasonably warm. Now I cannot take complete credit, my 24 year old Daughter and 21 year old Son helped me with the mixing of the “Mel’s Mix” to fill the beds. Now if I can just wait a couple of more weeks to start my seeds….
I’m a new vegetable gardener and I’m in the middle of constructing a varment proof fence before I dig.
What is the advantage to a raised bed as opposed to putting your crops right into prepared beds?