One thing I really miss about living in Schuylerville is growing my own vegetables. I have made several attempts here in Albuquerque in my little backyard garden patch, but have been relatively unsuccessful. For one thing, the soil in that bed is pretty poor in spite of my attempts to amend it, and top watering with a sprinkler is not a good solution for this climate. I found plans on-line for a self-watering raised bed and my parents gave me a Home Depot gift card for Christmas with this project in mind.
The self-watering raised bed has perforated pipe in the bottom and a pond-grade plastic liner. You hook up the garden hose to the filler every two to three days and in a couple of minutes the drain hose drips, you unhook the garden hose, and that's it! The water wicks up through the medium and the plants look great! I haven't actually harvested anything yet, but the plants are green and growing like crazy, so I'm very optimistic!
Stephen did some fancy cutting to fit the frame over a stump that I wanted to cover up.
I painted the box and frame to match the house and shed, and Stephen installed the liner, perforated pipe, fill hose, and drain hose. We taped up the ends of the pipe so they wouldn't fill up with soil (it's not actually soil -- it's raised bed medium).
Stephen trimmed the excess liner. So pretty! Ready for plants!
I planted tomatoes, bell peppers, summer squash, and collard greens. I added some landscape stone to cover up the cement blocks and make it pretty. So far it's working just like it's supposed to, the plants look great, the old stump is covered up, and hopefully we'll have some yummy veggies in a month or so!
