One of the things we loved the most and dreaded the most about our old house was the huge yard. Our house sat on 3/4 of an acre and the yard was a blank slate when we moved in. We had lots of plans for the yard, but not enough time or money to make them happen!
We did build up a beautiful garden, little by little, in the almost five years that we lived there. We started with a small 4×4 square foot garden in the spring of 2013 and added more raised bed just about every growing season. The end result was gorgeous and we loved tending the garden with our kids and enjoying the fruits of our labor. But, as the saying goes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Our garden had gotten a little too big for us to easily manage without becoming a chore so when we decided to downsize our home, we know we would downsize our garden too. Our backyard at our new house is tiny compared to the old one, so a small garden is pretty much a necessity.
We’ve been in our new house for seven weeks and our garden is built, planted and growing. We decided on a narrow raised bed tucked into the back corner of the yard to maximize space. My husband is 6′ 3″ tall and always complained about having to bend over so far to tend the garden, which is why he decided to go with a two-foot raised bed this time. The extra depth will also allow for more concentrated planting because of the extra nutrition from the soil.
Our 2016 Spring garden includes yellow squash, butternut squash, green beans, cucumber, bush tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, jalapeño, orange bell pepper, okra, eggplant and zucchini.
Since our yard is small and the garden is a focal point, I wanted to make sure our trellis systems looked nice, and I have to say that my husband did an amazing job on building these trellises! For the squash and cucumber trellises, he used galvanized steel stock panel and 4-inch cedar pickets to create a nice frame around the metal trellis. For the large tomato trellis, he used 1×3 cedar furring strips.
With a smaller garden, taking care of it is definitely more of a family affair and the kids love getting to help out with all of the details, especially watering.
Love this, how did you build the beds?