Building a Small Vegetable Garden

I wanted to wait until this coming week to post pictures of our new raised bed vegetable garden, but I just couldn’t wait!  I am so excited that our family now has a vegetable garden that we can tend together.  Plus, Annabelle is learning so much.  She loves watching her dad measure, cut, and lay out wood, and she likes to try on my gardening gloves, play in the dirt, and of course, stick her hands and face into the water hose.   I am planning to write an article about our small vegetable garden, so I’d love feedback about my pictures and the preliminary project steps that I’ve outlined here.

Step 1.  Decide on the size for your raised bed vegetable garden.  Measure your raised bed plot.  Measure and mark wood.

2. Cut wood.

3.  Lay out wood where raised bed will go.  Use chalk on the ground to mark the sides of the raised bed.

4.  Dig along the chalk lines to create an outline for your raised bed’s sides.  Dig 2′ holes for support poles.

5. (Not shown)  Place support poles into the ground.  Nail or screw sides of raised beds to the support poles.  Call spouse to brag about beautiful raised bed frame.

6.  (Not shown) Dig up and turn over grass or rocky clay soil that is unsuitable for growing plants.

7. Add organic vegetable garden soil.  Rake soil out to create an even surfaced bed.  Note: We are planning to organize our garden into rows of plants, although because our garden is inside of a small raised bed, we are not using the rows to walk through our garden (as other gardeners might need to do depending on the size of their raised bed).

8.  Dig small hole for vegetable plants.  We are planting our two tomato plants 2′ apart from each other to give their root systems room for growth.

Let your little ones explore.  =)

9.  Water your new vegetable plants.  Young plants are thirsty.

Play with the water hose. =)  But let’s not waste water, ok?

10.  Tend your garden.  Let it grow.

We are planning to add more plants in the coming weeks.  I purchased our two tomato plants from a local farmer’s market and will consult the experts about what grows well in partial shade.  Thanks again for all the feedback about gardening in my last post.  As always, I’m hoping to learn more.