Wanna know how much The Yankee rocks? A LOT.
He built this:
And, because that line in Rocky Top about the dirt being too rocky by far is all true, we filled the raised bed with this:
Saturday morning we headed out to Home Depot with The Kiddo. We checked out all our options, lumber-wise: we didn’t want pressure treated lumber because we didn’t want the chemicals from it to make its way into our garden. Then cedar was suggested as an option: the Home Depot guy said, “Oh you could use cedar! It would do great. I mean, you’d have to build a new one every season, though.”
After a few seconds of blinking and telepathic communication, we did not pass go, but went directly to the Trex. This was more our style! More sturdy than anything else in the store, and safe to use around food.
“Oh yeah,” says Home Depot guy, “You could eat off it.”
Uh, okay.
All told, it cost $93 for the supplies to build this garden (not including the fill dirt), which is eight feet by four feet. Expensive? Sure, a little. But we have to do it only once. And we used screws to assemble it, so we could theoretically take it apart and reassemble it every year. But smart money is on me leaving it there. 😉
So far The Kiddo and I have planted four tomato plants (because, really, what’s the point of a garden without the prospect of tomato sandwiches?), two pepper plants, some cilantro, some basil and some strawberries. I’d love to add onions and carrots and green beans. This nifty online planner shows how many of what you can plant in a square foot (thus my semi-obsessive square foot markers… made from The Kiddo’s yarn), then gives instructions for each plant you picked. How great is that?
So tell me! Do you garden? Do you have any advice, this being my first raised-bed garden? Any thoughts on how to keep away bunnies and other unwanted guests at the salad bar? Lay ’em on me!
One Particular Kitchen 
My H built us a garden too! I have a blog post ready to publish about it. We are so lucky to have such handy Hs!
We have two large raised beds that we pack full of tomatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, peppers, squash, beans, okra, and of course my herbs. It’s so much fun and you will not believe how much better your freshly grown produce tastes than store-bought.
Our main problem is keeping the deer out – we’ve had success with hanging/pinning dryer sheets around the garden area, and my in-laws swear by this awful-smelling spray that keeps them away.
Good luck and happy harvesting!!!
Rubber snakes or alligators (whatever reptile you can get at the dollar store) scare away the birds from pecking at your tomatoes.
Lucky of you to have a great spot to garden! Hope you have a lot of fresh goodies this year!
i am trying an herb garden in a container. hope to move to a raised garden like this later. i am totally bookmarking this! p.s. go vols!
I’m doing container gardens this year because we are still renting and not sure if we need to move in the middle of the summer.
Here’s what I’m growing (in pots)
3 Avocado trees (from seed)
Blueberry plant
Couple of peppers
Couple of tomatoes
Strawberry that is blooming like MAD!
Sweet potato
Tons of herbs
Here’s pics of it: http://sarapphotography.blogspot.com/search/label/garden
What a great idea. Maybe I will try that next year. We have really sandy soil, it’s just no good for a garden. I did a container garden last year and just started it again this year. It works, but it’s limiting.
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This may sound a little gross, but it does work very well for rabbits and deer: some night (late) after you have had meat for a couple of days, send your husband out to pee around the borders. You could do it, but since you have someone handy who can do it more easily… Repeat about half as often as you water or it rains. The reason? It smells like a large predator lives there to garden-eating critters. Which, technically, one does.