RAISED-BED COUNTRY GARDEN

We worked HARD yesterday, but knocked out the hardest part of our new country garden--building and filling the raised beds.  My husband and I built pine beds..30' X 3' X 1' tall.  THEN, we had to fill all of these boxes with rich black dirt.  We're lucky because all of this awesome black dirt came from our pasture.  Most people have to pay good money for this kind of garden fill.  And do you know how much backbreaking work it is to wheelbarrow this stuff?  So we cheated a bit....

All of this West Texas rain has wrecked havoc on our new roads...mud puddles everywhere!  So...luckily, we have a friend who owns all kinds of heavy equipment and is willing to let his guys work on the weekends without charging us oilfield prices.  So...every time we finished building a box, he would come over with a bucket of dirt and fill these things.  It took 2 of these loads per box.  It would have taken us a month of Sundays to manually do what we did today by multi-tasking! 

Here is what our garden looked like Saturday morning.  Notice the high fence?  In order to keep determined deer out of a fenced-in area, the fence should be at least 7 feet high.  So...the bottom 3' is tin....buried just a bit; then a 4' panel; then there will be a strand of slick wire.  The awesome part about burying the tin is...it will be as snake proof as possible.  My husband knows that if I run into a snake, he is going to have to garden the rest of the summer! LOL

And then....here is a picture of the garden area at 5:00 Saturday afternoon.  What an accomplishment!

DILEMMA:  Now that we are this far along, I have several questions for my readers....

1)  Notice the rusty barn tin.  Since this is close to my house, should we spend the money and buy new cream & white tin to match the well house and barn?

2)  Are there any master gardeners out there who can tell me what to plant together and where to plant?  I'm planting tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, okra, peppers, and squash...heavy on the tomatoes and cucumbers.  What about strawberries and raspberries?  Can they grow in pots along the walkway?

It's raining again today.  I guess this means no dirt work in the yard.  As ranchers, we are thankful.  As people with week-day jobs, we wish it would rain during the week instead of on our precious days off. 

3)  Any ideas on an inexpensive composter?  I've always wanted one of those...

Have a Great Sunday!!