My Cement Farm

The wife calls my chili garden "The Cement Farm". I made a raised bed this year to grow my tomato's, chili's, cucumbers, and squash in. It is against the west fence and only gets about 5-6 hours direct sun each day. This will be my tomato and other vegetable bed this coming year. All the pepper plants will be against the north fence which gets sun all the time the sun is up. You can see the right end of the raised bed has a 2X4 frame around it to protect my tomato's from the birds. The bed is about 50 feet long, 16 inches wide, and 24 inches deep.

[/IMG]

Wife wanted me to post a picture of "her" patio also. I must say she can grow some flowers.

[/IMG]

Looking good, liked the flowers as well.

Wow, that's a nice bit of garden you have there. Are the birds really that much of a problem? I lose a few tomatoes and peppers to them, but not many. I do put out water by the garden so they have alternatives.

Im still learning at gardening but that looks awsome!!!!!

Why so tall? You had a ton (sorry - really bad pun) of concrete blocks available? I would think that 16" tall would be more than enough. True, 5 cubic yards of dirt is not that much (I had to load, unload and spread 24 yds. this spring to fill in a swimming pool), but it seems like extra work to me.

Omri: Thank you

Pam: Thank you and yes, the birds ran me crazy enough last year pecking holes in my tomatos....I probably lost over 25% of my crop last year (if you want to call 6 tomato plants a crop). This year, I have not lost a single tomato. Would you believe the tomato plants are still producing? I have probably 6 feeders and a bird bath in the back corner of the yard but it seem the blue jays just love tomatos.

CP: Thanks

Wordwiz: The reason it is 32" high is I am basically lazy and didn't want to have to bend down to pull weeds, inspect the plants, and harvest fruit. The blocks were readily available at home depot (grinning here).

By the way, the bottom of the bed is 8 inches off the ground and I used 16" X 16" cheap ceramic tile for the bottom. I just wanted to build my raised bed so it would be there well after I am gone (will be a Pam "read royal pain" for the next owner of this house if they are not gardeners).

I agree with CP... no experience here (yet), but that looks awesome!

Better Picture

Thanks Baldman.

Just a better picture. I was wrong, the bed is only 40 feet long.

let me get this straight, you bought all that block & then you bought abunch of ceramic tile to fill in the space between the natural ground & up to the bottom of your garden bed soil ?

I think you could of found a cheaper way to get a raised garden bed if you did some good brainstorming, but thats just my opinion.

Yes sir, that is what I did. The ground here is very very rocky. When they prepared this lot to build our house, they cleared the boulders out, leveled it, and built the house. When they prepared the yard, they brought in sand/topsoil and put 3-4 inches over the caliche clay before the sod was put down. Agree there are other ways the bed could have been built but I researched different materials to use because I wanted it to last a long time. The wood to build this would have been dang near as expensive as the block and tile was. The tile was 36 cents a piece and the block was 99 cents apeice. Seems like the total was right at $300. If I had used treated 5/8" plywood, I would have had to have at least 8 sheets of plywood for the container, 11 2 X 4's for the frame, and the fasteners (nails or screws) to hold it together. The total cost difference of plywood/2x4's and the blocks/tile was minimal and since cement block and tile do not rot, I decided to use the blocks/tile. And you know what, I did not have to pound a single nail or set a single screw.

I did not build this on a whim, I researched all different kinds of materials and used the most cost effective method I could when you weigh all the factors.