Cool Garden Ideas

Building Raised Bed Gardens:
I got these ideas from an old video I got at the library. This is what I'm going to at the next place we live. My current garden space is kind of awkward and hard to work with.

Anyway, this is what you do. You're going to build a raised bed garden, and on each 4 foot board you will strap a piece of pvc pipe, about a foot long.


You'll make a long rectangle like this, and you can see the circles are where the pipes are. The bed should be 3 to 4 feet wide so you can reach to the middle without stepping in it. Since you won't be walking in your garden at all you won't have to worry about digging it so much. The soil should stay light a fluffy for the most part. This will save you a lot of work next year because you won't have to dig or till it all again.


Then you go get some flexible tubing. On the video it was black, and I think about 4-5 feet long. You just stick the tubing down in the pvc pipe on both sides of the garden box, so it looks like this. On the video he measured the top of the tube in the middle to be about two feet tall, so it shouldn't get in the way of most plants.


Then you get some string and nails. Put three nails on each end of the garden box on the outside. You tie a string to each nail and run it the length of the box, wrapping it around each tube so it stays in place.


Then you get some rolls of plastic. The plastic should be wide enough to stretch over the ribs (those tubes) and have a little overlap. I think that would be about 4 and a half feet if your ribs are every 4 feet. You can staple the end of the plastic to a piece of wood and put the plastic over the garden box. There should be a panel of plastic for each 4 foot section, and a panel to cover each end of the box.


This way you have your whole garden box covered, but if you want to go work in the garden you don't have to take it all apart. Just lift up that section of plastic.

Another thing you should do is make 4-6 inch slits in the plastic every 6 inches down the row. This will help your plants not get too overheated as the sun comes out and warms it all up.


This is great because your plants will be warmer and protected from frost in the beginning and end of the season. The guy on the video said you can plant a month and a half earlier than your neighbors, and keep plants growing a month and a half later than your neighbors. This means you will be the coolest neighbor on the block and your neighbors will all be jealous of your super cool garden.


The next cool thing is the trellis for your climbing plants. You build the same garden box with pvc pipes stuck to the boards.


Then you stick tall rigid pvc pipes down in the "board pipes."


This gives you the frame to hang netting. The guy on the video staple his netting to a piece of wood 4 feet long, and then stuck it to the tall pipes. I think he drilled holes at the top of the pipes, put a screw on both ends of the wood. Then he put the screw from the piece of wood through the pipe hole and used a butterfly nut to secure it. You can figure that part out though. It doesn't have to be exactly the way that guy did it.


The end result is that you have a nice long garden with a sturdy tall trellis for the whole length of the garden. Your tomatoes, cantaloupe, squash, and everything else will be perfectly happy growing there. Also, the netting he used has 7 inch squares so it's big enough to reach your hand through and pick the tomatoes.


I hope this has inspired all you people out in blog world, and I expect to see your gardens posted on your blogs soon too!