Raised Herb Beds Part 1

I added raised beds this spring to contain more herbs. I needed places for my stock plants from which I take cuttings for propagation. I found these cedar 4x4 foot beds at Home Depot. One was simply a 4x4 by 8 inches deep and the other was 2 4x4' beds - one 8" deep and one 12" deep - and they can be attached together or used as separate beds. I bought all they had left in stock and found 3 more at my local Ace hardware. Very simple to assemble and I think Bill can make these from scratch next year. Pressure treated wood will work instead of expensive cedar wood.

Here is detail of parts and assembled corner.

Here are the beds assembled and in place. The red containers are from last year and contain ever bearing strawberries that I wanted to leave in place.

 Next I had to kill the grass in the beds. I put down black plastic, pinned it with landscape pins and  waited about 3 weeks for all the grass and weeds to die. The hot sun helped speed up the process.

Now all I had to do was remove the plastic (water would drown the plants if I left it in place) and put in soil. I used compost to fill these. See my terrific compost bin in this post: http://www.tipsforgardeningonline.com/2009/04/best-ever-compost-bin.html

You would not believe the tomato plants that came up in that compost after about a week! Seriously, there were hundreds! I left a few of them and the picture is at the top of this post along with the giant gourd that also self seeded.

Next week I'll show you all the finished beds and some unique money saving ideas I had about using more of them.