Making Gardening Easier - Adding Height to Raised Beds - by Sunscape

As the years fly by, gardening has become a little bit tougher on the body. Not that it's too hard, but when you pass the 70 and 80 mark, it's time to make some changes. This post is my gardening journal update for mid-September.

As you can see, the raised bed was a single board's height. I decided that it was time to add another layer to two of the 5x5 frames.

Once the second layer was added, I removed all the Swiss chard and the pepper plants. I raked as much soil as I could to one side of each bed before adding a bottom layer of dirt.

I had shared in a previous post that we were eliminating a huge garden where all our Lilac trees had grown for over 28 years. The weeds had become too unbearable to keep up with, so we decided to make life a little easier in later years by removing them. This is where we hauled the soil to fill each of the beds. We used a pitchfork to loosen the soil and remove roots, and we began moving a lot of dirt to the other side of the property where the vegetable garden is.

We started with the farthest frame. Once we had filled it 3/4 of the way with soil, I raked the good soil that was already there onto it. Then, we began filling the other half of the frame. On average, we only hauled three wheelbarrows full each day. Let me say that dirt gets really heavy after the first two rounds.

As we were filling the boxes, I kept adding in shredded egg cartons and charcoal from the fire pit.

I had seen that adding charcoal is very beneficial for microorganisms. This is the first time I've done so. The good soil was raked back onto the bottom layer, and one bed is finished.

Next up was the chard bed. By now we are both feeling a bit exhausted. Yet, it was so satisfying to have one completed.

Same process as the onion bed: a few loads each day, and finally, we were done.The only thing left to do is go to the horse farm and get a few loads of three-year-old manure to mix into each bed. That will have to wait until next week since they are forecasting 4 days of rain in a row.

I'm so excited to have that second layer on those beds. Having them as high as the main frame where the brassicas are grown will certainly save my lower back. Have any of you thought about how you will make gardening easier for yourselves going forward?

Before winter sets in, I plan on dividing a lot of my perennials and hostas surrounding the back porch. That will also help to lessen the work each summer. I'm not getting any younger, you know, lol.