Background

First, let me make it clear that Cindy is the gardener in this household. She became a Master Gardener through the University of California extension Master Gardener program two years ago and does the gardening work. I do most of the carpentry and occasional unskilled labor.

About ten years ago we built a raised bed garden in the back yard so that Cindy could grow vegetables in some decent soil. We built it from 2 x 6s stacked three high in a sort of curved "L" shape. We sank 4 x 4 posts in cement to bolster the sides of the bed. In retrospect, that was probably overkill, but we were concerned about the weight of the soil pushing against the sides of the bed and possibly causing it to collapse. Fortunately, that has never happened.

We also put 2 x 6s along the top of the sides to make a seat all around the edge so we could sit on it, but we've never used it for that. Instead, it's probably helped with our critter exclusion.

Because we did have critters, right from the start. As our tomatoes grew, the ground squirrels were watching from the shrubbery. Cindy began a mostly losing battle with the varmints, but we did get a few tomatoes that year. Nothing better than a home grown tomato. Yummm. The battle with the squirrels got so bad that the next year Cindy decided to enclose the whole bed with plexiglass panels. That worked so well that we were able to have tomatoes without squirrel bites out of them, although we expected to see the squirrels bungee jumping into the bed from the nearby shrubbery to get those tomatoes.

As a result of all this work, we've had years of tomatoes, zuccini, squash and basil, and enjoyed them all. So this year we've built two more smaller raised beds. These two beds are rectangular and only twelve inches high and don't have the horizontal seat around the edges, but the first one has produced great tomatoes this season. That allowed Cindy to grow beets and green beans in the original bed.

The original raised bed is on the left in the picture above and the new ones are on the right. We got the flexible connectors we used for the corners of all the raised beds from Improvements at http://www.improvementscatalog.com , item # 142380 .

The black weed blocking fabric is there to kill off the bermuda grass and will eventually be covered with decomposed granite at some point.