This raised bed vegetable garden tour was originally published in July of 2013 – a great time of year in our vegetable garden since everything is growing nicely, but nothing is too overgrown yet so the bones of the garden design are visible. Because of that I thought it would make a good example to show how raised bed vegetable gardens work “in the real world,” so I’m republishing it with a pinnable image and bit more information, which will hopefully inspire you to try your hand at vegetable gardening the ‘”lazy” way!
This is not a magazine test garden – you will see hoses, crooked bed borders, and broken homemade cold frames. We’ve cobbled together hoop houses, tomato towers and bean trellises from cattle fencing, metal posts and pvc pipes. Yep – it’s real alright. It’s not always the most beautiful, but it is pretty, I think, with it’s neat edges, green growth, and lack of weeds (which is not because I spend hours weeding – read about no-till gardening for less weeds here!).
Here are a few other notes to help you on the tour:
- The overall garden space is about 60′ x 30′ and is fenced all around (Yes, it’s huge! But you can make raised beds in any amount of space you have).
- Fruit trees, fruiting shrubs, asparagus, strawberries, and a wind break hedge line the perimeter of the fence inside the garden.
- The six long ‘traditional’ raised beds are 4′ x 12′ with 10″ tall sides.
- The four larger permanent beds are about 9′ x 20′ with 4×4 posts outlining them (these were salvaged posts and have broken down through the 10 years of the garden’s life, and now we are transitioning these into no-edge beds by simply mounding the dirt up from the gravel paths).
- You can see a hand-drawn plan for the overall design here.
Real Life Raised Bed Vegetable Garden Tour
1. Entrance
The entrance to our vegetable garden is metal gate (it was here when we purchased the house) with a large grape arbor that we built over it. The arbor holds one seedless ‘Flame’ grapevine – and it completely takes over the whole thing by the end of the season! It grows larger every year, so unless you want to spend a lot of time pruning, I wouldn’t plant more than one grape for an arbor even as large as this (about 8′ x 3′).
2. Traditional Raised Beds
These beds hold tomatoes, cole crops like broccoli, cauliflower & cabbage, lettuce & greens, peas, carrots, beets and both hot & sweet peppers. The bed that holds our super high-tech pepper house is the first thing you see (though it changes year-to-year because of crop rotation). The house needs to be moveable, so Brian figured out this pvc-pipes-in-holes-in-a-two-by-four-held-down-by-large-rocks system. Oh, and I added the row-cover-clothespin system protecting the hot peppers out side of the house. I know – we should patent these, right?
Seriously, I LOVE the pepper house – I use a perforated plastic cover so I don’t have to open and close it so it stays on all season long. It’s the only way I can guarantee ripe peppers in September and October (and ripe means fully colored because I hate to break it to you, but green peppers are just unripe and that’s why they’re bitter).
This photo shows how much the peppers like being in the perforated plastic hoop house – they’re bigger and greener than the outside plants. I add a layer of black plastic on the soil (with soaker hoses underneath), too, to help hold in the heat. The peppers will produce into November sometimes for me with this system.
3. Larger Permanent “Raised” Beds
I planned these 4 large beds to be able to grow larger amounts of corn and potatoes and to easily rotate them. I use 2 for corn, 1 for potatoes, and 1 for pole and dry beans and cucumbers.
As you can see, I cram a lot into the roughly 9’x20′ bed pictured. I wrote about why I always grow Emerite Beans here and 5 reasons to grow cucumbers on a trellis here. Behind this bed you can see the 6 traditional raised beds, two of which are planted with 18 tomatoes.
The other three large beds are divided between corn and potatoes. You can see one stubborn dandelion on the edge of the lower right corn bed, but other than a weed here and there like that, I never weed these beds (you can read all about how to grow corn without weeding here).
The Yukon Gold potatoes will soon be hilled up with straw. I plant the two corn beds 1-2 weeks apart and they are different varieties so the will ripen over a month-and-a-half so we’re not swimming in corn for a week or two and then without.
I keep the broccoli and cabbage bed under cover most of the season – it’s the only way I’ve found to grow broccoli without having it become ruined from aphids. A few cabbage worms get in, but it keeps the bulk of those out, too.
4. Other Raised Beds
We had extra space and cinder blocks from the previous owners, so we created these long beds that I grow onions and sunflowers in each year. I love growing sunflowers!
But, this is just one of those bizarre things that happen in gardens, no matter how many years you’ve been gardening. These two beds were given the same soil prep & water, and have the same exposure, and yet the late planted onions and sunflowers have done well in the longer bed and are almost nonexistent in the shorter bed. Sigh.
5. Raised Beds for Permanent Crops
Along one of our garden edges we created 2 long 4′ x 18′ beds to hold our permanent asparagus crops. Raised beds are perfect for crops like this, since they don’t like to be disturbed and don’t like weeds.
Did you know that this is what asparagus looks like when you stop harvesting? You need to let it ‘fern out’ to be able to feed the roots and produce well the next year. The bed on the left did not get harvested in the spring, though – my goal is to cut it down in August and then harvest the shoots for three weeks in September to spread the asparagus harvest over the season.
So, that’s our real world garden tour and how we use raised beds in our vegetable garden to make gardening easier for us. I hope you’ve been inspired to plan a bed or two somewhere in your yard, too!
LINDA G says
Your newsletter and podcasts are so valuable, extremely helpful and informative to experienced gardeners as well as the novice. I really appreciate that you continue sharing your experiences and update topics with regularity. You make it easier for the rest of us. THANK YOU.
Jami says
Oh my goodness, Linda, your comment just made my day – thank you so much!
I’m so happy to know that sharing my experience is helpful, because that’s how I learn to and I hope I’m passing it on. 🙂
Dawn says
Your garden looks wonderful! I was wondering if you built the wood fencing. It looks like it could be a fairly easy, although time-consuming project. What kind of wood is used? Thank you so much!
Jami says
Yes we did, Dawn, in an effort to keep the deer away. 🙂 We had a lot of cedar fence boards left from a fence we tore down to build our garage, so we basically built a regular yard fence but left larger gaps in it so it wouldn’t look like some kind of fortress, lol. Sort of a 6-foot picket fence! We were able to build about 3/4 of it with the fence boards we already had and then bought the rest. We did make the posts a foot taller and strung wire between them to gain a bit more height for the deer. Hope that helps!
margaret conyers (Australia) says
I love the idea of high raised beds. I have a large bed but it is too big to walk around and too low to sit on. A non gardening guy built it and I didn’t have enough foresight to see its faults. its tiered level ground and difficult to walk around. Will get a garden construction contractor for the next phase.
Jami says
Oh, yes, Margaret, traditional raised beds do seem to work better if they’re smaller. I like them about 3 feet across so I can reach and at least a foot tall to sit (though higher would even be easier).
Kathy says
Worked today out in the front yard. Figured it wasn’t raining and a big storm is headed our way tomorrow so now was the time to do it! I’m on a 30 days of March cleaning project before we list our house. I have to use any decent days outside and rainy ones on inside projects. Going to have weeding arms tomorrow!
Kath says
Late to the party this week, so I’ll link up on Tuesday, but here’s my update anyway:
http://thisonegoodlife.blogspot.com/2013/07/gardening-update-more-war-than-peace.html
War and peace, gardening edition. Still waiting on a bunch of things to ripen.
I love your post – going to show the arbor trellis to my husband. I want one just like it!
[email protected] HOMESPUN says
Your garden is always a source of inspiration…you have so much going on and so organized …:)
Nell says
It looks like you have a very tidy and productive garden – great job!
Sharon H says
Loved the tour, thanks! Reminds me of how I used to garden when I had the space….sigh…
but now in my very small space around 3 sides of a small patio, raised beds allow me to keep my fingernails dirty…at least during the warmer months. I love intensive planting, which contrary to the imagination there are many plants which LIKE to live closely together. String bean seeds do Not need to be spaced 3-5 inches apart. If they did, I couldn’t gro enough for one meal. And even when I gardened with a full acre planted, I always grew my cucumbers on a gate. Plain old gate held up by two steel fence posts. you can still see them and easily reach them, so if someone doesn’t have the room to make an A-frame, no problem! Besides, the gates are totally cute, not to mention oh-so-country-chic! Enjoy your posts very much.
Shirley @ The Gardening Life says
It’s amazing the difference growing peppers in your “pepper house” makes! I’ve used cloches before but then I don’t grow the amount you do. What an excellent idea!
Sue says
I just love your garden! I wish I had a lot more room to grow corn, potatoes etc. My garden is 6’x9′. I live in the city, so not a lot of room. I planted cherry tomatoes, Big Mama Roma tomatoes and Razzle Dazzle tomatoes. One lonely banana pepper plant and 3 cucumber plants. I tried onions this year, so we’ll see who they do. I started almost all of them from seed (another new adventure for me). I didn’t have enough sticks for labels so I don’t know if I planted watermelon or gourds. Have to wait and see which produces. One of those seeds did not sprout, so I have to wait. Next year I will use tires or fencing with straw to grow potatoes. I also have a few green bean plants. I have picked some cherry tomatoes already and some beans. Just a handful each. They both were delish. Hope your garden grows well. Thanks for the tour.
Krista says
I really enjoyed your garden tour. I certainly can understand the ups and downs of gardening. I think I’ll try covering my peppers like you do to extend the harvest. What product did you use?
Jami says
The only place I’ve ever seen this. Krista, is at Territorial Seed.
I really love it, as you can tell, and it is in it’s third season, so it’s a good investment in my book. 🙂
Shawna says
What a incredible garden you have. It must take you all of spring to prepare and plant it. I start gardening again next fall and I can’t wait. I miss all the fresh produce. Thanks for hosting the linky party.
[email protected] says
Great minds think alike, Jami! I also inclued a progress report for my garden too! I love the nasturtiums growin in your asparagus! I’ve also got some really pretty flowers in my garden, too. Happy Tuesday! – btw, the shoes you recommended came in and I can’t wait to wear them to Paris next week… 😉
[email protected] says
sorry for the typos… 😉
Jami says
Oh, good – you have enough time to ‘break them in’ and get used to the new shoes. Have a great trip!! 🙂
daisy says
What an amazing array of produce! Y’all must be eatin’ well!
Stoney Acres says
Wow, your garden is looking fantastic! I love all the raised beds, that’s what we hope to have soon at our new place. Good to know that you will have some grapes after only 2 years, we are putting in a grape arbor like yours next spring!!
angi says
Jami, I love your garden! We’re pretty much at the end of our season and I’m just trying to keep some tomato plants alive until fall so hopefully we can get a few more tomatoes. We’ve moved alot and I’ve never gardened in the same place for more than 2 years. Next spring will be our third year here and its nice to know we won’t be starting over but building on our previous work.