Raised Bed Garden

New 2012 Raised Bed

Seven years ago, I built a garden for my wife along side the north wall of our backyard so it would get plenty of sunshine.  It is 32 feet long and 4 feet wide for a total of 128 square feet, but you can never have enough garden space in the desert.  My wife always planted tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables in it, but late last year I lost four of my tomato and two pepper plants to a late season blight.  Since I know it's important to rotate tomatoes, peppers, and egg-plant, I wanted a new garden area for these.--plus this would also give me room to grow more green's and other vegetables.

My new garden is 12 feet by 5 feet which increases my total area by almost 50%--yea!.  I built the old garden out of 4x4's stacked on top of each other and bolted together, but this time I decided to use 2x8's 12 feet long.  Due to the length, I doubled up the sides and screwed them together to keep them from bowing outward and for longevity.  This seems to be a much better way to build a raised bed, but only time will tell.
After building the frame I turned over the Bermuda grass and layered it with 4 sheets of newspaper (our local paper uses soy based ink). then I added 12 cubic feet of steer manure, about 10 cubic feet of my home grown compost, and topped it off with 12 cubic feet of commercial mushroom compost.  I need to check the PH of the soil to make sure it is not too acidic.
The sad looking plants are some "50 Pound Head" Bonnie cabbages I inherited from my wife--another school project.  I thought these had hardened these off well enough, but I planted them three days ago and then we had a cold windy spell --yikes.  I'll know in a few days if they are going to make it.