Our Vegetable Garden and a Room Addition

We have been busy this week working on our garden, playing in the mud and designing a room addition on our raised vegetable garden.  Needless to say, I haven't had much time to blog this week.  


Last year we built the first tier of our raised veggie garden at the back side of our house (shown in the picture).  It is 16 feet long and a little over two feet deep.  It is the perfect height for me as I don't have to bend over to work in it.  No back pain... yippee!  I was super excited to grow my own organic fruits and vegetables. 

After it was done being built and sprinklers were in it, we filled it with organic soil and I planted my rows of veggies.  I planted cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, chives, cilantro, bell peppers, and some herbs.  I made cute little spoon signs labeling each area.  

I was so excited watching my little plants grow.  I couldn't wait till they got big and I could harvest my little beauties!

Little did I know that gophers lived in our area and they definitely like veggies as much as I do!!!  After my plants got to a good size and finally started producing, all of a sudden, they started disappearing row by row.  One night the first row on the far right was gone.  The next night the next row.  We knew it had to be a gopher since the plants were disappearing from under ground.  We had never thought to put a wire mesh at the bottom to prevent gophers from eating everything up!  I knew bunnies might show up, but I hadn't even thought of gophers.  They are actually kinda cute and they look innocent enough.  Right up until they mutilate what you've worked so hard to grow!  After that, they became the enemy!!!  We went out and purchased some sort of sonic noise makers that you put into the ground and a metal windmill that makes noise to try to keep them away.  Well, let me just say, the only two things that survived in our garden were the basil and rosemary.  Supposedly gophers don't like noise...  I'm  thinking we had a deaf gopher!  The gadgets didn't work.  The only thing I found out is that gophers don't like herbs.


Over the past week and a half we have built a second tier room addition onto the planter.  We (meaning my husband) dug out all of the dirt from the front planter (but I supervised, lol) and we lined both tiers with a small hole wire mesh to prevent critters (mainly gophers) from coming up underneath.  We are planning to put a net over the top to prevent birds, bunnies, and anything else that might want to steal our goodies from getting in.  We are putting stair steps up the side of the garden so we can easily walk up to the upper level.  Right now it is kinda a muddy mess since we had rain this week, but soon I will take pictures of our progress and share them.  I think we have taken precautions against all potential veggie thieves this year.  Sheesh.... after all of this work, I sure hope so!


Until next time :)