I've tried a couple of small in ground gardens over the past few years and haven't had much success. (Mainly because I didn't put enough time or money into it) This year, we've decided to give raised bed gardening a try. First, I scraped the grass/weeds off the ground where the beds would be set. Then, I loosened up the top few inches of soil and broke it up with a shovel. Next, I added cow manure and broke that up in the loosened topsoil. I placed a layer of leaves on top of the manure. I ordered our beds from Greenes fence company because they come already cut to size and ready to slide the pieces together. We got a variety of bagged soil (organic topsoil, organic compost, organic garden soil) and filled the boxes. My oldest son enjoyed the next step the most probably. We dug worms up and put them in the raised beds.


We have some seeds starting in our sunroom. We may have gotten carried away because we decided to go ahead and plant a few of the cool weather greens in the beds. We put in some kale, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips this morning. We may have to cover them later, but hopefully they'll do ok.

Hopefully, raised beds will be a time saver and better option for us.