Raised Garden Bed - Part 1

I've been working on a raised garden bed in the backyard of my in-laws house in suburban Perth which we're hoping will return a year-round supply of herbs and vegetables.

We have designed it so that a rectangular vegetable garden will receive close to full sun, and a curved section that receives considerably more shade will be good for herbs and flowers. The following photos show the partially constructed structure.

Raised garden bed under construction – November 2009

Rectangular Garden Bed (vegetables)

Curved Garden Bed (herbs and flowers)

Since finishing the main structure in November 2009, the past couple of months have been spent adding reticulation, paper, lawn clippings, other general garden waste and fill sand (excess from another part of the yard). Next will be to take a trailer down to the garden supply yard to pick up some compost for the top.

The photos below were taken today (7 January 2010), which show that the garden bed is roughly half-full, reticulated, and only needing a little fill sand and compost before we start planting. The white buckets with blue lids are our attempts to create 'worm towers' within the garden bed. For the worm towers we've followed Leonnie Shanahan's interesting YouTube video. By the time that topsoil and compost has been added, only the top inch or so of the worm towers should be visible.

Getting ready to compost (January 2010)

Worm Tower bucket – holes drilled for worms to enter/exit

Father-in-law showing bottom of bucket cut out

Garden bed with three worm towers

Now that the hardest of the work is done, it's time to add top-soil and compost, and get set for planting. We have 12 Isa Brown chickens in a coop to the left of the vegetable garden, so will circulate soil from the coop to the garden.

Click here for update: Raised Garden Bed – Part 2.