Hello, hivers! Welcome to da garden, eh!
We've been having a run of really nice weather over the past few days, so I decided to start on rebuilding one of my garden beds. This is our smaller side yard garden. Last year, I grew red potatoes in this garden bed. This picture is from the end of June last year.
You'll notice that the garden is not a rectangle. The corner is cut out because there's an apple tree growing there. Also, you'll notice the grape vine growing on the fence. Once that grapevine grows out in the summer, it shades out the part of the garden near the fence. The potatoes in that shaded out part of the garden didn't do very well last year.
Because of those 2 things, I decided to change the garden to make it less wide, and a rectangle. I decided to expand the width of the garden near the apple tree, and then extend that line straight across to the other end.To do that, the first thing I had to do was to take out the old corner. I had to dig the dirt away from the boards before moving them. You can see the trunk of the apple tree next to the fence by the orange pot.
This end will be a bit wider.
The small post in the corner had to be removed, and a new post put in. I pushed the edge board over as far as it would go, and that determined where the new post goes. As you can see, the side won't be much wider, but a bit.
Here's the new post in place. I used one of the treated 4X4s that I had from a different project. They're a bit warped, but that won't matter for this project.
I had a nice comfy spot to take a break from all the digging.
I had to get a couple of more boards to finish the project. I'm using treated deck boards to hold the dirt. The first one went on the end of the garden bed.
Next, I had to put in a post on the other corner of the bed. Sometimes I find rocks when I'm digging post holes. Both of those rocks came out of the bottom of the hole.
I did manage to get the post in place, after struggling with the rocks. This is another warped 4X4 that I had.
Now that I had the 2 posts in, I could dig the trench to put the edge boards in for the new side of the garden bed. After a fair amount of digging, I was able to put the boards in place, and screw them onto the posts. I also spliced the boards together where they meet in the middle, using the cut off end from one of the boards for the splice. The bed is a bit less than 19 feet long, so I had to cut one of the boards off. I used two 10 foot deck boards for the long side, plus one under the top board to hold the dirt in where the ground slopes down on the outside of the garden bed. This process is a lot like building a large raised bed on a slope.
I still have to put in a couple of braces on the outside of the boards where there's no dirt on the outside, hopefully that will keep the boards from bulging out from the weight of the dirt. Then I just need to fill in around the boards and level out the pile of dirt that's in the garden bed. I'm pretty sure there's more dirt in the pile in the garden than what I will need to level the garden out. I can always find a use for the extra dirt.
That's it for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by to check out my post!
Maybe another short post in the possible bulge area outside would prevent it? 19' is a respectable bed!
I did think about putting another post, but my lower back was not at all happy with that idea...
I used a couple of short steel posts that I pounded in even with the top of the wood. That should hold it.
You garden bed looks fantastic and I inspired me to make one!
Thanks! 😀
Very cool
it is sooo nice to see how plants evolve after a work like this, it is gratifying to see the before and after. great work!
Thank you! 😊
Building new beds is never an easy task, epically when rocks are in the way, and the two you removed from the hole are rather large. Everything looks great my friend.
Thank you!
I think that before this house was built in the early 1900s, they filled in the lot with random fill that contains a lot of big rocks. In the past when digging I've found a few rocks that you would need a backhoe to remove...that's when you move the location of the post...
Or start visiting the farmer's market. 😁