Two Of My Favorite Things

Day 1

Photography and gardening are two of my favorite things to do, but lately my photography has been taking more of my time and unfortunately the gardens have suffered. A lot of my floral photography comes from my gardens. So I needed to figure out how to keep them and still do my photography.

So this year I've decided to downsize my gardens to a more manageable level. I'm keeping my front perennial garden, my peony garden, and blueberry patch. All of which are easily managed.

But I wanted my sunflowers, cosmos, zinnia and love in the mist as well as a spur of the moment purchase of oriental lilies.

For the past few years I've had this spot behind our house where the old porch used to be and often thought that would be a great spot for raised beds.

I went back and forth with the idea for a while and looked online at various kinds of raised beds, but nothing was screaming at me. I'm really not a handy person unless I have to be. Most raised beds I saw required more work than I wanted to put in or were too expensive. Until now. I found these planter wall blocks that fit 2x6 wood boards. I could create any size and any height raised bed I wanted. And one of the bonuses with these blocks was that there is a hole in the center which you can pound in a piece of rebar to keep the blocks stable. It's affordable, easy to put together and if I ever need to replace a board I just slip the bad one out and replace with a new one.

The photo below is my diagram and this is how I'm hoping it will turn out.

In this diagram the numbers in the squares represent the number of blocks high. The numbers on the lines represent the lumber height or 2 boards high.

At this point I've added some soil to the new raised bed location trying to level it out some and covered it with black plastic to keep the weeds out.

Except for the soil, I got all the materials from my local Home Depot and had them delivered which came the next day. Otherwise I would have to make several trips into town. And the delivery cost alone covers gas and my time.

I wanted to start straight away, but I had to work. So for now I get to stare at the materials for a few days before I can give this project 110% of my time.

Next time I hope to have the project completed except for soil. Stay tuned.....

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