This hillside has been a pain in my butt for 2 seasons now. There is a flat area at the top and then a sharp slope that is fine for planting things like melons, but gets so quickly overgrown that a raised bed is really the only way to go. We managed to get some nice salvaged lumber from a friend and built two LARGE raised beds. We dug the lower one in so that each bed would be level. Now I have a 10' x 3' bed AND an 8' by 3' bed of beautiful fluffy soil (organic topsoil with rabbit manure, hay, and compost).
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| Stage 1: Cut down grass and loosen sod. |
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| Stage 2: Level the area where the beds will sit, lay the frames and fill with dirt. |
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| Stage 3: Bask in the glory of your new garden beds! |
They turned out so beautifully that I really think we're going to convert ALL the beds to wooden raised beds as soon as they are empty. They'll be a heck of a lot easier to weed-whack around, that's for sure.
Hills in Pittsburgh....who would have thought!! Your whole area is hills!
ReplyDeleteThe beds look great! That hard work will definitely pay off! I agree and would convert all the beds. It's a lot easier to maintain in a smaller space and they look so nice and neat.
There is a guy near the South Side that has nothing but a cliff for a yard, but he still managed to put a small veggie garden. It's almost totally vertical...I'll have to get some pictures later in the year :) All things considered we're lucky we have as much flat area as we do.
ReplyDeleteYou'll love the wooden beds ... best thing about them as the years go on you just keep adding a layer so that by the time your a senior gardener there will be no bending.
ReplyDeleteThere is a senior couple down the street from me with a HUGE garden, all in raised beds. I wonder if they started out that way or switched to deep beds out of necessity.
DeleteThose look great! I would love to convert some of my garden space to raised beds.
ReplyDeleteJudy
We started with a few but are only converting a few areas a year. The raised beds are a lot of up-front work!
DeleteMy front yard slopes, too, and when I started gardening there years and years ago, we put in "raised beds" that I think of more as terraces. What a great move that turned out to be! You are going to love those beds. Looking forward to hearing what you've planted in them!
ReplyDeleteThanks! We initially wanted to go with terraces, but changed plans at the last minute. Now that we have things growing I'm glad we left the space between the two beds.
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