Due to an ever expanding list of "must grows" I am building some new raised garden beds and, lying outside of our fenced backyard area, tempting fate of critter incursions, though a six foot deer fence just erected should slow down most of them.
The new beds are being built of stone collected off of our property. All hand selected, or as the case may be, pretty much just picking up rocks and making them work. I am mortaring the beds, which is considerable work, but what the heck, and old guy needs to have some physical labor from time to time.
The photo shows the completed bed number one and the beginnings of bed number two, with the 1600 gallon rainwater tank in the background...so you can see there is a decent drop in elevation from the tank to the beds for water pressure purposes.
The first bed is about 25 feet in length and around 7 feet in outside width. The others will be the same width but will decrease slightly in length due to the alignment of the barn to the house being slightly off from one another...whatever.
It took about 23 sacks of mortar to build the first bed. Mixing a half sack at a time, it felt like that is about all that I was doing...lay a couple of rocks, mix mortar, lay a couple of rocks, mix mortar. It would have probably been cheaper in the long run to use a load of sand and masonry cement rather than the premixed mortar, but it is easier to just open a little bag and be ready to mix what I need then and there rather than fussing over how much to mix.
We wanted these beds to be able to plant more "spawly" things, like tomatillos, melons, berries, okra and stuff like that. So far in the first bed that is pretty much what is in there. Green tomatillos, purple tomatillos, Navajo blackberries, three okra varieties, eggplant and soon to be in there is Malabar spinach - a viney spinach-like plant that can get to 10 feet in length and can survive the Texas summer heat. For the next bed completed I have some cantelope seeds starting in pots, and we will also put in watermelon and pumpkins, and if there is room blackeyed peas.....
....maybe three or four beds won't be enough, maybe I better start planning for five?
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