Raised beds - cinderblocks

When I was planning my raised beds I took lots of time to measure the garden, at least the flat area of our back garden (I'll go into the slope in another post), and then mapped it out on graph paper and planned the beds again and again till I was happy. I decided on 5'x3' beds with 3' walkways (good for the width of the wheelie bin and wheelbarrow), but I wanted to eek out more growing space. When I started the garden last year the first spot I planted was this spot inground was this space between the Valencia Orange and the gate. It's a small area about 8'x3'.

So I figured make a narrow bed along the wall, but what materials to use? Well we have some spare cinderblocks that were left from the previous owners around the side near the shed. Some digging, some leveling and the project was underway. I didn't want to go right up to the path so I decided to just have a 2ft deep bed, plus there is a lump of concrete under the birdbath and didn't want to dig that out to level the area. Make do with what you have!

After a single row I called it done. The cinderblocks are 12" high so plenty high enough, fill in with compost and called it done. Until about a month later when I added another little bed to the left under the tree, where the plastic container is in the photo below. Couldn't do that at the same time as the carrots were growing there (which were rubbish as the soil is crap as mentioned before).

I do like the cinderblocks as a raised bed medium. They work well. The bed was pretty productive over the fall/winter and I look forward to including it in my upcoming seasons planting schedule.