Our Raised Beds

I get a lot of questions on how we constructed our raised beds. I am not the gardener in the family but I did help with building of them so I'll do my best to explain how it was done. Everyone's garden needs are different so this is not a DIY, but will hopefully give you some ideas and answer any questions that you may have about our gardens.

We chose to garden in raised beds for a number of reasons including the fact that our soil isn't great, we have flood irrigation, and it's easier on our backs. We have two beds. One constructed of redwood and the other of pine. The redwood holds up better (and looks gorgeous) but the pine for the second bed was cheaper so we went with it. 

We will soon have a third garden (as seen below). Remember that ridiculously wonky, stapled together chicken coop that we bought for the new girls? It's absolutely useless to use as a coop so we are going to take out some of the doors and windows and plant gourds in there. Our hope is that the gourds will grow up, around, and over the coop. Not sure if it will work but it will be super cool if it does.

Anyhow, each of our raised beds are built from (4) 2x6's on each side with wooden posts on each end and in the middle (6 posts total for each bed). 

We have 4 pieces of rebar secured to the sides of the garden and running over the top of each bed. A few people have asked me if it's a watering system - it's not. We use the rebar as a way to hold up the netting to keep the chickens and dogs out and as a place for us to hang our shade cloth in the summer (which we have just put up for the season) and our freeze cloth in the winter.

For our soil, we bought truckloads of organic compost from Singh Farms in Scottsdale. I can't recommend this place enough for local friends. It is a hidden gem! Since our gardens are fairly high and large, we secured the sides so they don't blow out. We took metal cable and secured it around the two posts in the middle of each bed.

For watering, we dug a small trench from the closest water source and ran pipe to each garden. We have drip irrigation tubing snaking through the gardens and have it set on a timer. We don't have to worry about the watering much except when it gets too hot - then we just increase our watering times.

As you can see, the chickens are constantly hanging around the garden so it's essential for us to have netting in place to keep them out. The netting is available at local hardware stores and really, it's hardly noticeable (you can see it in the photo above). We have small little hooks screwed around the beds to secure the netting in place at the bottom - otherwise the girls would squeeze their way up and in.

The gardens are a real labor of love and my mom spends countless hours out there each week tending to them and cultivating them. Her efforts are greatly appreciated as we have fresh veggies, herbs, and flowers daily.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions about our gardens. If not, let me know!

Full Bloom

Spring is by far my favorite season here in Arizona. The weather is gorgeous and dry, the neighborhood farm animals are having babies, the flowers are in bloom, the hens are laying up a storm, and we spend every waking minute outdoors. I fully realize that this all sounds ridiculously cheese ball but it's true (back me up here fellow desert friends). If you are quietly cursing me now, remember that I will be cursing you in just a couple of months when the crazy desert heat settles in. At least we have the haboobs to look forward to, right?

I don't think I've shared any gardening or chicken pictures in a while so here's the latest and greatest of what we've been doing outside.

We added a second raised bed a couple of months back so we now have room for a small cutting garden. Fresh flowers in the house every day? Yes, please.

(Update: someone asked on Pinterest if the rebar over the bed in these pictures is a sprinkler system. That would rock but it's not. We have a watering system snaking through the actual bed which works very well. The rebar above the garden is to hold the netting in place to keep the birds and chickens out. We also use it to hang our sun shade in the summer and freeze cloth in the winter.)

Even the girls are enjoying the beautiful weather. I think they know that summer is fast approaching so they're taking advantage of this while they can. They are not big fans of the triple digits and really, who can blame them?

Jason and I were looking at the garden this afternoon and he lifted the net for a split second. In the blink of an eye, Francie was up there looking to snag a treat. If you don't watch it with these young pullets, they'll gouge out your eyeball to try and steal your food. They are crazy. We had a picnic under the trees last week and poor Finley lost his quesadilla to Minnie before he knew what hit him.

All of our trees are starting to produce this upcoming season's fruit. The boys are checking out the apple trees (their favorite and mine too) with Old Lady. Her name is Addie but for some reason, Oliver has called her his Old Lady since he started talking. Sadly, we think that Old Lady's days are numbered so we're getting in some good quality time with her.

And kind of related but kind of not...My sister, the AZ Plant Lady, had a film crew over from SheKnows.com today to film several "how to" segments on gardening for their website. She is a gardening genius (especially for the desert) and I know these videos will be incredible. I'll be sure to share when they're available.

Wherever you are, I hope you're outdoors and enjoying spring (at least on this side of the hemisphere).