Extreme Raised Gardening

[Patty S]

My daughter-in-law, Amy, has been telling me about her "raised garden", & I assumed that she was talking about raised beds ...until today, when I went over there.  It turns out that we were both right in our terminology, cuz she raised the whole garden, AND put raised beds in!
     

It was Dave's idea to move her garden from the edge of their field, cuz he didn't like mowing around it. Amy didn't like the idea at first, cuz in the new location there is a tree that shades it in the morning. It still gets more than 6 hours of direct sun, so I think it'll do well.

He terraced the slope where the new garden sits, using 4 X 12 planks that he found at a local used building material outlet, & they covered the whole thing with a heavy gauge weed fabric. (They both work full time & never have time to fiddle with weeds.) Before moving here, Dave worked for a polyethylene corrugated HDPE pipe manufacturer & would take home some of the rejects that didn't pass QC. I couldn't believe it when he included that stuff in their move! He made good use of it by building playground equipment with it, for the kids (although it looked pretty weird), but I thought the best idea he came up with was planters.
         

Since the timbers aren't pressure treated, the planters will outlast the raised garden (by a couple hundred years), but they're only renting anyway.  When they get around to buying their own property, they'll enclose their raised garden in concrete.

Amy uses coir (Coconut-husk fiber) & compost for her planters, & even though she got a late start getting her plants in this year, the black planters pull heat into the soil & everything appears to be happy!  She'll be adding more planters this year if she gets the time.  She wants to add steps between the four levels, & says that one of the nice things about this setup is that she does very little bending... she can stand on one level & tend to many of the plants that are within reach.

If that's not a gardener-friendly garden, I don't know what is!

[patches]

Geesh, this looks like a neat idea, but it seems like a lot of work for a place you're renting.  Of course, if it makes your gardening easier I'm sure it's worth the effort.