Preparing The Beds

Today we got the raised beds ready to be planted.  The very first thing I did was add compost to all of the raised beds, and mix it in real good.  We have 3 different compost areas.  A bin near our house (not pictured), the compost pile sectioned off with a pallet, and another black compost bin near the back of the yard.  We use all 3 of them, and add to all 3 throughout the year. 

After that, I raked all of the raised beds to level out the soil.  Here is my husband putting up new grids on all of the beds. We do the square foot gardening method.

 

Last year we put our grids up real fast.  We used twine that we tied on nails that we put in every foot.  Over the year, the rabbits ate through the twine, it broke, and started decomposing.  The nails rusted, and stuck out of the beds.  I did not like that at all, we had to be real careful around the garden beds.  And we have kids, and dogs, and I would hate for either of them to step or put their hand on a rusty nail.  So we decided to remove them.  This year we used a nylon rope that should not break down, and we used the staple gun so nothing is sticking up above the bed.  I have seen people making grids out of thin wood paneling  but that would take up some of the space in the garden and I don't want to lose any more space than I need to.

Below is what we used as our herb garden last year.  This is the next garden bed I need to get ready.  This is where all of our tomatoes will go this year. Big project.  We are waiting to get the rototiller fixed before we tackle this.