From row gardens to raised bed gardens

For 26 years I gardened in a community garden. I started when I was pregnant with my first child wanting to know where our vegetables were grown and how they were grown. Not having a gardening background I started reading and researching anything and everything gardening.

For a couple of years I had been driving by this community garden in my neighborhood and always curious. What is going on over there? Who are these people? Is this a private farm? Finally one spring I stopped and walked in. To my luck it was opening day and all the gardeners and were digging, tilling, planting and watering. As I walked in I was greeted by Jack, one of the founders of the community garden. He answered all my questions about this wonderful place. He took my name and number and got me started on this gardening journey.

There I learned to row garden with irrigation. That’s planting in rows with trenches in between to allow for irrigation. This community garden is located in an old reservoir that has a ditch that runs adjacent to the garden. We irrigated our gardens with the water that ran in that ditch.

I hurt my back a few years ago at work and struggled to keep up with the maintenance of my community garden. So with a heavy heart I gave up my plots at the community garden and started gardening more at home.

Last year I tried the raised row gardening method in hopes of easing the heavy weeding of a traditional garden bed. It worked OK but i think I can do better with a raised garden. So this is my journey into raised bed gardening. Come join me in this me adventure where I blend my 25+ years of gardening experience into raised beds. Pictured is my first bed.