It Is So Nice to Have a Son

 I have been doing raised bed gardening since about 2010. There hasn't been much "raised" to the bed. I framed the area I intended to garden with landscape timbers, tilled the dirt and put seeds in the ground.

This year my son, Joe, decided it was time to improve the raised beds. I need them deeper for root crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I need them deeper to continue to improve the soil. Joe counted the beds I have (9) and computed the number of landscape timbers I needed to bring them up to 3 landscape timbers high, and off he went to Sutherland's Lumber. He began by making me an entirely new, huge 4'x32' bed (bed #10!) west of the circle garden. Our friend, Dave, in the dark blue shirt, helped him with it.

Practice improving the first two raised beds told Joe that driving 12" spikes into those landscape timbers with a 3# mini-sledge wouldn't be fun. Not even pre-drilling the holes was enough to keep him from groaning about his aching back and shoulders.

He invented a special tool for his air-compressor that would be a modified air-hammer. With the air-hammer he could drive the spikes nearly in place. The sledge would only be needed to seat the heads.

As simple as it looks to make a rectangle out of landscape timbers, the process is very time consuming. After all the timbers are staggered like bricks and placed just so, with levels stacked to the right height, Joe has to drill pilot holes for the spikes. Usually it takes someone, in this case, Dave, to steady the timbers while he pounds the spikes in place. Each joint requires a spike on either side of the seam. Corners need three spikes. We use 12" spikes to reach through all three timbers. If they poke through to grip the earth below, that's gravy.

Finishing this bed means three of ten beds have been brought to full height. It's going to take all summer to bring all of the raised beds up to this new standard. Thank you, Joe and Dave, for this bed.

I love this new bed! It is as long as my parent's garden was wide. I can see it being used for lots of things, particularly things I want to grow in quantities. I had first thought I would plant yard-long beans here, but on second thought, this will be home to the tomatoes. It takes a lot of tomato plants to put up all the things I like to can.



Update July 2014: Here's a photo taken in July with the tomatoes going strong. I've already picked three or four Roma tomatoes. It won't be long before I have enough beefsteak tomatoes at one time to start canning. YUM!