I like working in the garden. I'm not sure if I have green fingers or if they just haven't been washed in a while, but either way I enjoy it a lot and always get good results. Recently steph and I wanted to plant our own vegetables and herbs and decided to plant in raised beds as it rains A LOT here....Biblical flood style. We chose a piece of grass behind our bungalow with reasonable sunlight and good drainage.

We cut some thin bamboo reeds, which we stripped and then wove between thick wooden stakes to form the boundary.

We then put down 3 layers of newspaper pages to kill the grass underneath (yes laziness won the battle) followed by black plastic to keep the dirt from falling through the holes. We then filled it up with our mixture of 30%soil, 10%compost, and 60%mulch, which we covered with a layer of leaves to discourage any surprises from our cat Bibi.

After only a few weeks we already saw great growth, and of course when planting in mulch you can harvest very easily as the soil stays so airy and light. Here are some pictures of the produce.

garden bed

mache

basil

coriander

carrots

This was a fun and very tasty project, and you can do it too! Or instead try vertical gardening if you are short on space.