DIY raised bed!

We built a raised bed this weekend!  By buying our own materials, we were able to do it for approx $20.  Boyfriend did the building, and I did the planting!

We used topsoil with peat moss, organic garden soil, and manure.

We dug up the sand underneath and thoroughly wet it, then we mixed all the soils and thoroughly wet them also.

Boyfriend also made the trellis himself.  He has mad skillz.

I raised the seeds inside under lights, then transplanted.  About 90% of the plants in this bed were grown by me from seed.

You may be wondering, why marigolds?  They are a natural form of pest control.

On the left wall is sweet onions, along the back is cantaloupe and eggplant, in the middle a purple cherokee heirloom tomato and a jalapeno pepper.  Along the right is summer squash.  And finally, up front here we have okra and corn.  Yep, corn!  We'll see what happens with that and how crazy high it gets!  (I'm a little worried about our fat squirrels out back though - I'm sure they'd love some corn.. :)

Plants grown indoors from seed.  The 3 large plants, sweet potatoes, onions, and marigolds were store bought.

Marigolds for natural pest control - in the fenced area is a little sweet potato patch (1 of 2).  Sweet potatoes like poor, sandy soil.  We threw 2 into the raised bed for an experiment, though.  To the right are 2 pots with the extra squash & cantaloupe seedlings I grew.  If anything should die in the bed, these sprouts will replace those plants.

Mini sweet potato patch, pots with squash and cantaloupe
seedlings. 

Sweet potatoes

An additional sweet potato patch in the back of the yard