Our Raised Garden Beds- Garden 2012

It has been unseasonably warm here in Colorado.  I was hoping that I was way ahead of the game this year with the garden but I feel like we are playing catch up already.  We went from 40 degree temperatures to 80 degree temperatures without a drop of moisture the ENTIRE month!  Alas, we are trying to resurrect our yard from the brown abyss it has become so we decided to get our garden going!  Last year I threw down some seeds and planted directly into the soil.  While that worked, it was exhausting, water intensive and it didn't yield great harvests.  This year we are trying raised beds.  Our game plan is to make 9 beds measuring 4x8 feet (to maximize the length of the boards from the lumber yard).  My garden style will be a blend of traditional spacing mixed with square foot gardening.
What do you get when you get 8 cubic yards of dirt and 18 cubic yards of mulch?

You get a lot of wheelbarrow trips to the backyard!

It's absolutely imperative that I document such monumental events with my camera (thus allowing me to escape from having to haul a few loads myself :-) )

But I diverge... let me back up and show you what I made Handyman do first...

Using these boards from Lowe's, we Handyman were  was able to create our beds.  We chose not to stain them because I don't want anything leaching into our vegetables.  That is another reason why we didn't choose treated lumber even though treated lumber will withstand the elements better.  For all 9 beds it costs us about $250.  Some of you might feel like that is highway robbery and I agree that those veggies better be paying for themselves sooner than later!  If you think about how much the garden supply catalogs charge for one raised bed (about $80), it makes $250 seem like a steal of a deal!

Oh what I would do without my Handyman (probably by the really expensive prefabricated ones lol ).

After placing and filling each bed with the 8 yards of Planters Soil that we had trucked in, we were able to start laying the mulch down.

This is what it looks like waiting for veggies to be planted (pretty brown huh?)  If you look in the center of the picture, that is my bee hive waiting for it's final coat of paint before it becomes a lovely new home at the end of April!

Here is a shot of the raised "hills" that we are using for the corn, watermelon, and pumpkins.

And here is a shot of the trellises we built out of old chain link fence gates that we had on the property.  In front of these trellises are our circular strawberry beds with pink sprinklers!  As least there is some color in there somewhere!  Oh, and don't look at the mess on the porch... that was my impromptu painting area.  What was I painting this time?  Well, you will just have to wait until I show you what else I am adding to the garden... until next post :)

Linked with Farmgirl Friday Party

Linked with Monday's Barn Hop

Pruning Old Growth

I may have broken a cardinal rule when it comes to pruning. Without knowing what type of bush these atrocities were, I pruned them. I speculate I needed to wait until fall to prune them since they already had green buds blooming but I couldn't wait through another summer.
Part of me secretly didn't care how they survived the brutal chopping. If they died then at least I could plant what I wanted to plant- at least that is my logic.

There are six total of these masses. The neglect from the previous owners shows with the unsightly shape of the hedge. Below is the picture after I gave them a "haircut".

What? You don't think I chopped much off? HA! Look at the pile I dragged off to be hauled away!  It looks like I chopped down a full grown tree!  Seriously, some of these branches were over 10 feet long!

My poor husband! Just wait 'til he finds out that I created more mess for him to deal with. This little project makes me think we need to invest in a chipper soon.
I will keep you updated throughout spring and summer as to what will come of these bushes. Since I chopped off most of the buds, I don't know how the bushes will react. One thing I have learned is that plants this old, tend to be hard to kill.