East Raised Bed #2

Spring 2010 - The Tomatoes (Last Year)


The Story: Free dirt and Raised Bed Construction

Let me start by making a long story short. I was on CL looking for wood to make a raised bed. There was a couple on there that had a raised bed already filled with dirt and they said I could have it for free. (Usually free stuff on CL is dump quality and the people are looking for some sorry sap to haul it away. Little did I know.)

I don't know how many times I was offered free dirt on CL only to find the dirt to be rock hard clay in boulder sized clods. But, these people said they built the soil themselves and it was very good: coconut husk, peat moss, vermiculite, compost. I showed up to the house and the soil is BLACK GOLD. Light, spongy, dark, rich in organic matter. Like most gardeners the people abandon gardening after there first season. The raised bed sat underneath a tree that dropped its leaves that no one bothered to clean up. THANK YOU. The leaves basically broke down and composted into the bed, further adding to its quality. The wood that the bed was constructed from was total crap though.

I went to home depot and bought 2 16ft 2x8, and constructed a 2.5ft x 13.5ft raised bed and filled it with my dirt.



 THE KEY TO MY SUCCESS!!!

Store bought tomato cages will not be sufficient to grow tomatoes in, NOT BY A LONG SHOT! So the key to any tomato gardeners success can be seen in the above picture. HEIGHT. I placed the raised bed just off the roof line. I dropped a line of garden twine off the roof to the bed below. When the tomatoes started to grow I TRAINED them up the line to the roof, giving them all the room to grow as they needed.

The GUINNESS BOOK has a record of a single tomato plant growing to a height of 31 feet.