How can you transform an overgrown raised garden bed into a thriving vegetable garden?
We're so glad you asked...
The raised garden bed looked something like this when we first looked at the house:
Add on three months of glorious Alabama sunshine and rain, and well, this garden bed needed some tough TLC. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it's achievable.
My mom uprooted every single inch of greenery in this bed and cleaned it all out. The huge elephant ears that you saw from our herb garden were transplanted from this garden first. It was unbelievably hard work. There are no words to express our gratitude towards my mom and dad for all of their help.
Next we covered the bed in fresh Miracle Grow, mixing in the old dirt. After a quick shop to Lowe's and the local garden center, we planted lettuce, tomatos, squash, eggplant, jalapeño peppers, bell peppers, basil, cilantro, parsley, zinnias and nasturtium (which is an edible flower and quite delicious!).
JD soaked them in some serious amounts of water...
And then it was time to assemble the trellis:
There is something so endearing about seeing the two favorite men in your life work together.
Isn't he such a stud?
They even let me help!
They laid a board down the center for ease of picking and watering the plants while walking through the center instead of walking in our garden bed.
In about two weeks, everything flourished!!
Our greatest gardening endeavor is for our raised bed garden to look like this masterpiece in a few months (or at least next summer):
This is a truly thriving vegetable garden, cared for from seed to veggie by my dad.
He and I spent Father's Day morning sitting in his garden, drinking hot tea and listening to birds. I'm not sure if it was his best Father's Day ever but it was certainly my favorite!
