Adventures in Raised Gardening Part 3: Build, Rebuild, Plant, and SNOW?!

So I'm really behind on my garden posts, so this is going to be a long one.

About two weeks ago, after we had all of our supplies in the backyard we actually built the two beds.  It was a much longer process than I thought it would be, but with the hubby's help, we managed to get it finished in one night.  I used a stamper to level the ground and laid the first level of cinder blocks.  Then we started adding the second layer, but had to leave some room to put all the dirt and other soil stuff in the beds.  We learned after the first bed to add the peat moss, compost, and vermiculite before adding all the top soil - basically like this: add half top soil, then all the good stuff, then the rest of the top soil.  Here are the process pictures.

  After we had the beds built and ready to go, we had some rain.  A LOT OF RAIN!  Great news for our the dry land left behind from last year's drought, but not so great for our garden.  We had discussed reinforcing the walls with re-barb but decided to wait and see how things settled.  We should have reinforced first.  Our backyard slopes ever so slightly to the West and so all the rain washed down our little slop and made the farthest wall buckle and start coming apart.  We went to the store and discovered that re-barb is expensive so we opted for wooden stakes instead.  We'll probably have to replace them in a couple of years, but hey, they only cost $7.  My wonderful hubby fixed the walls in the midst of some more drizzle.  We didn't want any more damage before we got around to fixing everything.  Have I mentioned how amazing he is???

 We had been having some cold nights still so I waited until April 29 to plant everything.  I put mostly roots in the bed closet to the house and my tomatoes in the other bed.  Here is how the beds are roughly laid out.

	Better Boy Tomatoes		Pepper
Grape Tomatoes		Celebrity Tomatoes
	Better Boy Tomatoes		Carrots	Eggplant
Grape Tomatoes		Celebrity Tomatoes	Carrots
	Better Boy Tomatoes		Carrots	Eggplant
Better Boy Tomatoes		Celebrity Tomatoes	Carrots

Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions	Summer Squash
Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions
Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions	Summer Squash
Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions
Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions	Summer Squash
Potatoes	Potatoes	Potatoes	Onions

Here are the beds after everything was planted. The bed are the bottom right is where all my roots are.  One thing I did different this year is put mulch on top of everything.  I've read it helps with water retention.  We'll see!

After planting everything on Monday, we had freak weather on Friday and by freak I mean SNOW!!!!  Yes, we had snow on May 3rd!!!!  It was latest snowfall ever recorded in the state of Arkansas. I covered the tomatoes with a sheet and the snow just fell on the sheet. We covered them the next night too because temps were below freezing.  So far, it looks like my tomatoes survived the weather.This is what my beds looked like after the snow.

Here is my precious little girl out in the snow!  She thought it was AWESOME!!!

    Unfortunately, my summer squash has not made it.  I think that has more to do with too much sun than the snow, though.  The snow melted before the day was over and now we are back to nice spring weather.  I'm watering every other day when it doesn't rain and using Miracle Grow once a week to help everything grow big and strong.  I'm so excited to see how everything grows this year with all the changes I've made to my gardening ways.  I'll post updated pictures as everything really starts growing!