Categories: Gardening

Planting Raised Bed Vegetable Gardens

Raised Bed Vegetable Gardens

We finally planted our raised bed vegetable gardens this weekend. I chose raised bed gardens for several reasons with the biggest reason being I wanted to limit how “Big” the gardens would be. History tells me that if we just start tilling up soil year after year the garden will grow in size and I’ll no longer have any free time (not that I have much now!).

Vegetable Plants We Chose

We chose quite a few different plants this year. Some of them are not plants I’d choose but I figured we could give them a shot (my wife grew up in CA so she doesn’t understand that some plants don’t do well here in New England). So this year we planted:

Tomatoes – We planted six plants; two early tomatoes, two mid-season variety and two large “steak” tomatoes. We actually bought plants several weeks ago and kept them in the garage till now to protect them from frost.
Peppers – We love roasted peppers so we planted six green pepper plants and six yellow pepper plants.
Onions – We use tons of onions in this house so it’s no surprise that we planted them. I’d love to plant Vidalia onions but I have a feeling that’s something from a specific area in the South so we settled for a sweet white onion. We’ll be able to pick these early as scallions and later as full size onions.
Zucchini – This is by far our favorite squash and we eat quite a bit of it. We planted on mound of zucchini with four plants.
Butternut Squash – Butternut is my favorite yellow squash and it keeps really well for quite a long time if you keep it in a cool dry place.
Cucumbers – No garden is complete without a nice supply of fresh cucumbers. Bring on the salads!
Broccoli & Cauliflower – While we were away on vacation the in-laws took the kids to a farm…then came home with these plants. Our son loves Broccoli so I was not at all surprised.
Green Beans – What garden is complete without some green beans? We planted two rows of them so I have a feeling we’ll be eating green beans for quite some time later this summer.

Planting a garden is a great DIY and family project. Our son was so excited to plant the garden this year. If you’re looking for a great project that will save you money, help the environment and provide you with the best tasting vegetables you’ve ever eaten then plant a garden.

Todd Fratzel

I'm full time builder for a large construction company in New Hampshire. I run their design-build division that specializes in custom homes, commercial design-build projects and sub-divisions. I'm also a licensed civil and structural engineer with extensive experience in civil and structural design and home construction. My hope is that I can share my experience in the home construction, home improvement and home renovation profession with other builders and home owners. I'm also the Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Tool Box Buzz. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions or you'd like to inquire about advertising on this site.

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View Comments

Baba says:
May 18, 2009 at 11:34 am
Great vegetable choices. I loved using raised beds when we lived in the city. Now that we are in the country we aren't using them for our garden. You should also try the potatoes growing in tires trick.